Sometimes, SEO isn’t enough — you can have mountains of traffic, and if your website simply isn’t able to turn that traffic into buyers, you need to stop focusing on SEO and worry for a while about your conversion rate. There are several tricks websmasters use to improve conversions — from targeted Email marketing gimmicks to flash banners — but two of them work on a different, more fundamental level than all the rest. The best part is that the two can be used together.
Priming Words
Like it or not, science has proven that the human mind works in large part on a subconscious level. Researchers have been able to prove that introducing a set of words that all relate to a given topic, even out of context, cause the people hearing or reading those words to start subconsciously thinking about that topic. Here’s an example:
Jerry Florida was worried. It was a gray day out, and he was wondering how lonely his morning jog would be. He usually jogged alongside a few of his neighbors, but the threat of rain might make them “forgetful” of their morning ritual. Looking around his apartment, his eyes hit upon his old treadmill, now a place to hang his freshly-worn clothes before they were washed. Bingo! He’d get his morning jog despite the possible moisture, and catch Regis at the same time.
Believe it or not, right now on a subconscious level, you’re probably thinking about what it will be like to get old. Huh? Check out the priming words hidden in that little story:
old, Regis, worried, Florida, lonely, gray, bingo, forgetful
Scientists have shown us that after reading a story like that, people will walk more slowly, think less clearly, and even be slightly more fatalistic than they were before they read it.
Consider that the next time you start writing your website copy. How can you use the power of subconscious priming to get your audience thinking about the problem that YOUR product or service solves?
Web Presenters
A Web Presenter is simply a pop-up video of a person. They are generated dynamically on the surfer’s screen so that they follow the reader as they scroll. They offer your website the opportunity to have a “face” and a “voice” that are human, and thus hard to ignore. 90% of communication is non-verbal, and a Web Presenter brings most of that 90% back to the table. In short, a website with a Web Presenter will appeal on a fundamental level that a text-and-pictures website simply can’t.
Consider the opportunity that a Web Presenter gives you — not only can you add that extra layer of communication to your website, but you can have the Web Presenter deliver the priming words in a voice that the reader can’t easily skip over. That’s some top-tier converting power!
