In order to design your web strategies to maximize your sales or leads, you need to understand your audience.
What prompted them to come to your URL? What  is it that they are looking for or expecting?
To the extent that you are able to identify why prospects are there and identify their desires, you are more likely to generate leads and sales from their visits to your site.
Your prospects have a variety of reasons why they visited your website.
Here are some possible reasons:

  1. Organic search through the Search Engine Optimization
  2. Paid search on Google or other search engines
  3. Public relations, referrals or viral marketing
  4. An offline campaign, such as direct mail campaign
  5. An online initiative, such as a banner ad, email, or Facebook
  6. An electronic campaign via radio or email

As you can see, most of the time your prospects are visiting your site with every limited or sometimes no information at all about who you are what you have to offer.
Given this, it is easy to understand how a poorly designed home page or one that does not follow direct marketing rules could kill response.
Home pages are usually designed with the idea that the person visiting knows what the site is about and automatically loves it.
It will usually have multiple navigation options, and it will not have powerful sales copy.
This is why you should create a landing page for your campaign, and why relying on home pages is an obsolete strategy.
It’s essential to ask: Who is coming to my site? What is driving them there? What are they looking for or expecting?
Ask yourself: If I came to your site, could I hit the wrong navigation button and kill the sale?
Ask yourself: Does this home page address your prospects’ basic needs? If it does, you’re going to prosper. If it doesn’t, you’re going to lose time and sales.
Ask yourself: Does the copy persuade me and overcome my objections?
Analyze carefully how your prospects found your website, then look at your site as if you were a prospect visiting for the first time.
Keep in mind that your competition is just a click away, so you need to have a website that speaks to your prospects clearly and quickly addresses their questions and needs.
The best solution is to have two or more landing pages on your corporate website.
If you have any questions regarding this article or would like help in creating your next direct mail piece, you can call me at (310) 212-5727 or email me at [email protected]