Website Without Words: Are You Missing This Piece?

Online customers interact with content and the written word in a few different ways. I occasionally come across a client who believes that his or her particular customers are not interested in reading. Usually it is barked out something like this:

“My customers don’t want to read a lot of words on a page.” Period. (The commandment to the copywriter).

(heard you. i did. i immediately imagine a website without words.)

But what you said is only half, maybe one-quarter, correct…humongous holes in your sales funnel.

Some of your customers may not like to have to read a lot because they already know what they want or can quickly identify what they want by a product image or some other visual media. That’s a good gaggle of customers to have, by the way. They see what they want then hit the “buy now” button or email or call to get a couple quick questions answered.

Without words, though, there is likely another segment of customers and prospective customers to your website that are immediately confused, lost, and a little abandoned. This could be the over 50% of Americans that do online research before buying:

• They may be unfamiliar with your products and services
• They may need some advice or direction
• They may need supporting content
• They may want to educate themselves before they buy
• They may leave your site to visit another before coming back to buy

It’s not necessary to deliver a dissertation on your webpage. But for products that could be unfamiliar to some or have technical names, then a bit of clean and concise informational copy is good business.

• Here’s what we have
• This is what it is
• This is what you can do with it
• This is how you can buy it

That’s a solid sales tactic. Leave out the middle pieces of it and there’s a gaping hole where many potential customers are falling through–the missing pieces. Solved with simple web copy.