Give site visitors a why-to-buy

Good: Every product page on your site features an easily-noticed callout box listing the five most important reasons to buy from you.

Much better: Your prospect discovers your why-to-buy in context.

• When she searches for your product on Google, your Adwords copy succinctly presents just the right benefit — the one you've A/B tested against other components of your why-to-buy.

• Once she's on your site, your prospect scrolls to the bottom of a long category page — or clicks into that second page of search results. The site recognizes that she may be trying to decide. A small graphic catches her eye, inviting her to get help from your product specialist via phone, e-mail or chat.

• On a product page, as your customer's eye drifts over the “add to cart” button, a relevant message, “In-stock and ready to ship,” is directly within her field of vision.

• On the cart page, as your customer contemplates clicking the checkout button, she notices that the shipping line doesn't simply read “0.00” or worse, leave a blank. Instead, this space highlights your “Free two-day shipping.” And your unconditional satisfaction guarantee is also visible in a small linking graphic nearby.

Look at each decision your shopper needs to make as she browses your site, trying to find, choose and buy. Which specific element of your why-to-buy message can you reveal at each point, to provide your shopper the confidence she needs to move forward to conversion?

	Keeping your why-to-buy visible

Whether your site takes a basic “billboard” approach to advertising its why-to-buy, or reveals this messaging piece by piece, in relevant context, success will also depend on the overall design quality of your site.

If you're convinced that each of your pages provides ample reasons to buy from you, but your site still failed the six-second test suggested earlier, consider two likely culprits:

1. Clutter

2. Ignoring design and usability conventions

Successful Web page design relies on prominence and prioritization. The most important elements are given commensurate graphical treatment. They get noticed first, while less significant page elements are subservient. Clutter is the enemy: If everything is important, nothing is important.

If you've determined that you are selling primarily on service, but your site “shouts” at your user with competing red banners proclaiming “sale” and “clearance,” your lifetime guarantee is likely to be overlooked.

If your pages are clean and clutter-free, but your shoppers have to work to learn how to use your site, your why-to-buy may again be overlooked.

Websites should be unique in their selling proposition and conventional in their design. The result isn't a cookie-cutter site; it's one that allows your brand's why-to-buy to shine.

Larry Becker is vice president and principal, Website effectiveness, at the Rimm-Kaufman Group Web consulting firm.