Sean D’Souza – Crucial Website Component Series

Do you feel like banging your head against the wall when writing content for the important pages on your website?
How do you write sensible, yet compelling content for pages such as your Home Page, About Us page etc? Wouldn’t it be just wonderful to have a systematic approach to create the important pages on your website)?
Most website-based books talk about usability and design, but often all you really want is a way to be able to write the important pages.
You want a simple, step-by-step method that will help you put the content together. You know you need content on your “Home Page”, your “About Us” page. And yes, you very much need clear instructions on “How to get customers to sign up”.
And no matter how much you seem to look, most books don’t seem to give you a system. Instead they show you tons of other websites, never stopping to put together a system you can easily follow.
But even if you do have a system, it’s important that the system be flexible
A rigid system is useless, because it doesn’t allow you to be yourself. A fill-in-the-blanks system isn’t of much use to you either. That makes you feel like a robot just filling in blank after blank. Instead what you need is the best of both worlds: a system that allows you to take the steps with confidence + let your own personality and voice come right through.
Introducing: Critical Website Components-Part 1 (Yes, it’s part of a series)
The Critical Website Components Series is where we take apart sections of the website and analyse them in great detail. We take a look at the core principles that need to be considered, then take a look at websites out there and how they’re using these principles. And finally, we have a step-by-step method so you can put your pages together.
That’s the biggest problem, isn’t it?
Putting it all together is the most frustrating exercise ever. Because it’s seemingly so hard to do, we keep putting if off until later. Or we just put together a page, just so that we have something online. And that’s why the Critical Website Components Series is so useful. It helps you:
1) Put together specific pages on your website from scratch.
2) Helps you audit your existing pages and see what’s missing.
And in this part of the Critical Website Component Series, we’re going to:

• Better understand how to design a solid home page that helps customers find their way around (and do what you want them to do).
• Create an ‘About Us’ page that sets your website or business apart from competitors.
• Create a clean, non-creepy sign-up route to your subscribe page.

Presenting ‘The Critical Website Components Series
Book 1: The About Us Page—Why You Need To Throw Away Your Brown Paper Bag
The first idea you get when someone asks you to write an “About Us” page, is that the page needs to be about you. Oh well, it seems like it’s supposed to be about you, but in fact it’s about the customer. But wait, how could that be possible?
In this 45-page book you will learn:

• The importance of trust on the about us page
• How to use photos creatively and still be yourself
• The ‘Zorro Syndrome’—How to hide your face but not your personality
• The best way to goof up an “About Us” page

Book 2: The Home Page—How To Put Sparkle And Pop Into Your Home Page
Everyone has a home page. And yet so many home pages are so darned ineffective. What’s happening? Why do home pages go awry when they’re the page almost every visitor sees.
You may have books on how to make a page look good and how to create usability. This is different from both. What this book does is show you how to drive the customer forward using both text and graphics.
In this 59-page book you will learn:

• What is the purpose of the home page
• How to choose a graphic layout that works for your business
• How to create the right points of interest for your site
• How to stop your visitors from looping mindlessly
• What are the four elements every home page needs.

Book 3: Getting To Sign Up—How To Create A Clear and Simple Route For Subscribers
If you go to a pond where there are lots of fish, will you catch fish? No you won’t. You know as well as I do, that you could be there all day and never so much as get a nibble on your line. And that’s because you’re not attracting the fish.
The same thing happens on your website or blog—If you want someone to do something, you’re going to have to give them a reason to do that something.
And here’s what you will learn in this 39-page book

• How to decide the right route to sign-up
• How to create a non-creepy route to your subscribe page
• Why reports matter
• The Psychotactics route to subscriber and how it works

So what’s unique about this series?
The books are not just conceptual, but show you how to create the content and design. This allows you to quickly make changes to your website or blog. You need something that you can apply straight away—and see results.