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Demolish the Roadblocks on Your Website: Clearing a Path for Customer Action, Sales and Loyalty

Presenter: Gerry McGovern
Broadcast on Thursday, January 21, 2010 » Now available on demand!
Duration: 90 minutes
Cost: $129.00 (FREE for Pro members)

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You’re walking on a busy street. Your friend John is on the other side and you want to get his attention. So you start waving and shout “John!” You get John’s attention and once there’s a break in the traffic, John crosses over. John’s now standing in front of you. What do you do now? Stop waving and shouting.

When someone comes to your website you already have their attention, yet so much Web marketing involves waving and shouting at the customer standing right in front of you. No wonder so many hit the Back button.

Vain hero shots and silly welcome messages drive most of your customers insane. The Web is not about goals. It is about tasks. Big difference. We recently tested a website where it took ages for an absolutely useless graphic to download. Customers were not impressed.

Social media is the latest craze, and, boy, do marketers love crazes. Most of your customers do not want to interact with you. They just want the facts. They want the price, the dimensions, a comparison of your product with competitors.

Most marketers love coming up with fancy new names for their products and services. Absolute suicide if you want to get found. Basic rule of the Web: the customer controls the language, not you.

The Web is self-service. The Web is about customer power. It is the customer, not the organization, who is in control on the Web. The customer searches, the customer clicks on that link (or not), the customer quickly scans your webpage. What will your customer do next? Click on one of your compelling links or hit the Back button?

Too many people create websites that look beautiful. But what we really need are websites that WORK beautifully. It's not enough to put some content up. It's not enough to launch and leave an application or a new website design. If you want a website that makes money you must continuously improve the completion times of your customers' top tasks. The most important thing you need to manage on your website is your customers' time.

You Will Learn

How to identify in a clear and statistically defensible manner the top tasks of your customers.
How to measure if your customers can quickly and easily complete their top tasks on your website.
How to create a task-focused website design that maximizes sales and customer satisfaction.

About this Seminar

Who Should Attend: Key people on your Web team should attend this seminar — copywriters, information architects, marketing communications wonks, interface designers, and anyone who adds content to your site.

This is the fourth topic in our Webstorm Seminar Series, a perfect storm of seminars to help you supercharge your website. Pro members have access to this series and all of our other seminars!

About The Presenter

Gerry McGovern is widely regarded as the number one worldwide authority on managing Web content as a business asset. He has published four books and consulted in 35 countries on Web content management issues since 1994. (His fifth book will be published by Bloomsbury in 2010.) He is CEO of Customer Carewords. Clients include Microsoft, Cisco, Tetra Pak, and the OECD.

In 2006, he was described by The Irish Times as one of five visionaries who has had a major impact on the development of the Web. (The other four were Tim O'Reilly, Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee, and Nicholas Negroponte.)

Gerry has written four books on Web content. His latest, Killer Web Content (Bloomsbury / A&C Black) has been described by Suzanne Sowinska, Manager, Content Publishing Excellence, Microsoft Corporation, as "essential reading". Bev Godwin, Director, FirstGov.gov: the U.S. Government's Official Web Portal, said about the book: "Genius! Gerry McGovern gets it! If you read ONE book on managing a Web site, this is it."

What Participants Said

Of the participants who evaluated this seminar, 100% would recommend it to a colleague. Some of their comments:

"Excellent explanation of why you need to check your corporate ego at the door and observe/listen to your customers if you want to have a successful Web site."

"Just love the straight talk ... it's so refreshing to hear after dealing with brand/web people who can't get over themselves. The "we are not the center of the universe" exercise is brilliant. And the focus on task is right on point."

"Packed with immediately useable information -- some so obvious, you wonder why you didn't think of it yourself, but bet you didn't!"

"Listen to this seminar...it gives practical and easy and duh, real world advice on understanding your customer. It's stuff we know but don't always practice because we're trying to fit all we can into the pixelized box called our website."

"You need to hear what this guy has to say about the "Long neck" and the "long tail". New ways of thinking about old time communication snags."

"I would say that Gerry McGovern really knows what he is talking about and it's great that he has a great personality along with an actual sense of humor that people can relate to. I don't think I yawned once during this webinar!"

"Anyone that has a website absolutely needs to listen to this seminar. It really puts the focus on the customer and gives you an enlightened perspective on the true purpose of providing content on the web."

"This seminar encapsulated everything I believe regarding website development. It's all about building customer-centric websites. My clients are always looking at how they want people to think, not about what the customer wants to do. My best clients allow me to turn this around. This seminar provided excellent content as to how to get this accomplished."

"It's not about visual design pulling the customer in; it's about focusing on what they came there to do in the first place. You don't believe me? Then listen to Gerry."

"Gerry's really gets across what is essential in web site design. It's very inspiring and yet practical at the same time!"

"I would say that this webinar is worth attending because Gerry provides a refreshing, customer-focused approach to how to extend/establish/operate your business online successfully. I learned a great deal and found him to be a very dynamic, engaging and knowledgeable speaker."