As part of our ongoing series on the process of creating your Web site, today we present a story of two business owners and their respective quests to create compelling content for their sites.

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Charles and Sydney had each launched a new business: Charles sold doo-dads, and Sydney sold gizmos. Each entrepreneur was excited about his new venture, but also found the prospect of building a Web site daunting in the extreme.

Once Upon a Time in London…

Charles did his due diligence and hired Internet Today, Inc., a firm specializing in design and code. They took a strategic look at his business and crafted a game plan for a killer Web site to promote Charles’s doo-dads.

Internet Today said to Charles, “We never start a design without having the content in hand. We don’t write content ourselves, but Words for People is a copywriting firm we partner with a lot. They know how to turn visitors into customers, and we highly recommend you work with them to write your copy.” Charles, who recognized that he was not an expert wordsmith, readily agreed. He saw the extra outlay of cash as an investment in his company’s future success.

Word for People interviewed Charles about his products, and then wrote brilliant copy that clearly explained the benefits to the consumer and made it clear that one simply cannot live without a Doo-Dad by Charles.

Meanwhile, in Paris…

Sydney also performed due diligence, and he hired the firm of Webs-R-Us, LLC to build his site. Webs-R-Us was adept at the whole spectrum of internet marketing, including design and code and also copy writing.

At the beginning of the project, they told Sydney, “We recommend that we help you out with the text for your site. We’ve been doing this a long time, and we know how to convert visitors to your site into paying customers through the skillful use of words.”

Sydney, however, was not impressed. “I know my gizmos better than anyone else, so I’m the most qualified person to write about them. Besides, I know how to write, anyone can do that. These guys just want more money.”

So Sydney went home and wrote all day for five days straight, and produced content for his whole site. The text he wrote went into nauseating detail about the specs of his gizmos, and how much effort had gone into creating them.

The Big Day

Both sites happened to be ready to launch on the same day. On day 1, both companies flipped the switch. Charles had a dazzling site that looked great; Sydney’s site also looked great. Everything was looking, well, great, for everyone.

Aftermath

Two months later, Charles was facing a serious problem. Orders for his doo-dads were off the charts, and he could barely keep up with the demand. He’d already had to hire three full-time production staff, and soon he would have to expand his factory or risk missing orders. What’s more, the great majority of those orders came from people who had visited his Web site. “What a wonderful investment that site was!” he exclaimed one day. But no one answered because they were too busy filling orders, so Charles stopped ruminating and got his butt in gear working on expansion plans.

Sydney, too, was in a panic, but for altogether different reasons. “No one is buying my gizmos or coming into my store!” he lamented to his aptly empty store. “I get a lot of traffic on my home page, but none of them seem to stay for very long and no one has even visited my contact page. I’m going to have to close my doors! What a waste of money that stupid Web site was!” But no one answered because no one was there. Somewhere a cricket chirped obnoxiously.

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The Obligatory Moral

While it’s true that most people can write, that doesn’t mean that most people can write compellingly. Often the business owner is so focused on the product, they go hog wild describing what it does and neglect to make a case for why you might need one.

Both Charles and Sydney picked solid firms to work with, with the necessary skills or partnerships to ensure that the site worked well. However, while Charles saw the value of hiring Words for People to write for him, Sydney viewed it as an unnecessary expense (recall our investment vs. expense discussion).

To sum up: Content is king, not only for our friend the search engine, but also for converting your visitors into customers.

Photo Credit: GoonSquadSarah via Compfight cc