SimpleWeb Blog

The supermarket Gondolas are so damn good at getting our attention. I hate it. I always consider the products in those huge displays at the end of the aisle, accompanied by that terribly cheesy sales sign.

The fact is... they work. As we discussed in our Click Happiness post, it gets your attention.

It's possible to achieve that same attention grabbing effect with your business website, but it's not easy. In fact, we have all been guilty of playing hide and seek with our visitors at some stage or another. It's not intentional but it is the unwanted result we achieve by not following some core principles. Not sure what I mean?

Check out this marketing website. (Screenshot below)

It sells tickets to marketing events, offers a newsletter subscription and asks you to connect with them on social websites. Standard call-to-action options many of us provide. (In this post I am referring to call-to-action as the buttons or forms that allow your visitors to buy your products or sign up to your services).

When I came across this site for the first time, I felt like...

What is the difference between getting the sale or letting a customer slip through the cracks of your website into the hands of the competition?

Visibility.

Have you ever paid attention to the specials available in a supermarket? Next time you visit any supermarket, pay close attention to their slick impulse buying strategy. They face their important specials toward the entrance and are positioned at the end of the aisles, also known as Gondolas... Sorry Venice, supermarkets stole the name of your romantic boats.

These Gondolas display large signage, have plenty of space and make the specials more obvious than a lie coming from Pinocchio. Whilst I'm not a big fan of supermarkets in general, you can learn from their marketing.

What works in the offline world, commonly works in the online world.

For some reason, many of us still fill our websites like the regular shopping aisles instead of the Gondolas. So many options presented at once, our visitors don't know where or how to take action. It's too hard for visitors to stick around trying to navigate a website that appears more confusing than Joaquin Phoenix's change from acting to rapping.

So how do you turn your site from a shopping aisle to a Gondola?

Make it easy.

Easy to...

Free small business advertising. Forget all of the other business website advantages for just a moment because free advertising tops them all. Television, radio and magazine commercials all cost a small fortune. Guest blogging, newsletters and Twitter don't cost a cent.

Okay so we are stretching the truth a little. Free is never truly free, it always comes with some sort of time or effort cost, the advertising we speak of will not cost you anything financially. So you could say it is financially free.

I can just picture the critics saying "Time is money!"... and they would be right. Either way, you won't pay cash for these forms of advertising.

Whilst there is going to be a lot of "free" talk in this post, we promise we won't dance on the back of a Zumba truck or try to sell you a Snuggie (surely everyone realizes this is a robe worn backwards?). The free talk we are referring to is free advertising online with your website.

Blogging On Your Own Website

The best part of business blogging, leverage.

One message can reach thousands of people. Want to advertise your products or services, write blog posts containing handy tips and tutorials for using your product....