5. Get first time readers focused on taking one very clear action.
There are too many things you’re asking readers to do on the homepage. By presenting too many options, they often end up taking none of them and bouncing right off your page, never to return again, even if they liked your content. With so many potential avenues of communication, it’s tempting to offer them all and let them pick the one they are most comfortable with. But this rarely has the desired effect.
If you can focus your efforts on securing one channel of ongoing communication with them, you’ll be buying yourself the time you really need to show them how valuable you can be. Pick just one channel and put all your efforts into securing a sign-up. You can be big on Twitter, big on Facebook, big on Youtube, big on Google+ or big on Linkedin. But you can’t be big on them all. (And I’m not sure Pinterest has any relevance to your work.)
Ideally you will focus on your own mailing list. That way, you can be big in your customers’ inbox, the most personal of online spaces. From there you will have the maximum amount of control over what you present to them and how frequently they receive it.
Action: Make sure your key pages give the customer just one option and make that option impossible to ignore and hard to resist. Give a very clear reason why they should sign-up for your mailing list. Know what their biggest problem is and offer the solution on the other side.
6. Always address the elephant in the room.
I suspect that the vast majority of first time visitors to your site will be struck by the same thought “Isn’t Christian a man’s name?” And I’m sure you’ve been experiencing that surprise your whole life. But if you fail to address it, it can be a distraction that widens the trust gap. Remember that people are easily confused, easily scared and generally prejudiced against things that don’t instantly fit into their known patterns.
Although if acknowledged and owned, that “gender confusion”, could be turned to your advantage. It could be part of the costume and character in the theater of promoting yourself. Men and women throughout history have gained attention by creating a little gender confusion. It’s a constant theme in the fashion world and many celebrities use its power.
The single prominent image on your site already hints at this. But you seem to have toned it down from the larger image I noticed on your Facebook account. My advice in this area would be, don’t just dip your toe in the water, go for it and really own that character. Play it up and keep finding new ways to spin it.
Theatrics aside, your domain name: christianmarieherron.com is very long and will prove difficult for most people to remember. It also doesn’t speak at all to your product, market or mission. Whilst I would keep it for people who are specifically searching for you, I would test a series of domain names that are more inline with your market and easier to remember.
Remember you want to focus on your market’s PAIN. Off the top of my head, I would test names like “introvertpanic.com”, which speaks to the market and their unease far more directly than a dry, “professional” and forgettable domain name.
Action: Go all out with the “gender confusion” image, make it your costume. Consider a number of alternative domain names that grab and hold your target’s attention and test them for impact. (Even if they sound a little tacky at first).
7. Be very clear which gender you’re talking with.
Much of the language on the site speaks directly to one type of woman. Words like “Intuitive, ponderer, soulful” with pictures of flowers and butterflies, will attract some women and repel others. They will repel most men.
Without knowing precisely who you are trying to capture, I can’t advise you fully. Other than to say, unless you really want to exclude men, I would speak in a way that appeals to both sexes.
Action: Make a decision about exactly which gender you are targeting, then make sure your language appeals appropriately.
8. Lose the “corporate speak” and talk simply, directly and emotionally to your customers.
No one ever got frustrated because they couldn’t “activate their leadership skills” or “leverage” anything.
They also aren’t motivated to take out their wallets by cleverness…
“We’ll convene around your virtual strategy table, flanked by the knights who will help champion your cause. You will learn about the tools available to you, namely: Fire, Map, Key, Sword and Sacrifice.”
Remember, this is not the corporate market, where management is spending corporate money, and more than anything they want the employees to report that they enjoyed the training they were forced to take. We’re talking to individuals with real, personal problems and we’re asking them to spend their own money. The more abstract the language we use, the less impact it has.
What you want is to touch your readers emotionally, where they are hurting. And also paint a picture of a better future, a future you can help them achieve. Whilst it may be acceptable to use games IN your training, (although my personal experiments online don’t support that), they won’t help you SELL that training in the first place. They are too abstract to trigger enough emotion. And those motivated enough to pay for their own training, are mainly focused on solving the specific problems you have identified. Not being entertained.
Action: Banish all corporate talk and game playing from your site. Talk one-on-one, to the specific problems your clients have, the emotional reasons they have failed in the past and the future they want to create.
9. Internet “likes” are not the same as queuing customers.
One of the biggest challenges we face when we’re starting out online is to know when we’re winning and when we’re losing. What can really shoot us in the foot, is changing direction before we’ve given ourselves the chance to succeed.
Often, the line between success and failure isn’t as clear as we imagine it should be. That can be especially tough if we confuse our “stats” with real, hungry customers. We have to accept that building a loyal customer base online is a messy process. Your ideal customers are like diamonds. And they’re buried in an ever growing list of people who aren’t your ideal customers, but who have chosen to follow your work.
So, you can’t let the numbers confuse you. 200 people queueing outside a high street retail store waiting for it to open, is not the same as 200 Facebook likes. 500 people on our Twitter list is not the same as having met 500 people face to face. 1000 people subscribed to our newsletter list is not the same as 1000 people who need solutions right now.
Building a following takes time and lots of effort. You need to be good first. Then you need to be bold. But most of all you need tenacity. The truth is, you’re only just starting out. You aren’t targeting the wrong niche. You just haven’t put all the pieces of the puzzle together yet. It will take time and consistency. A lot of people just don’t have what it takes to ever put that work in. I suspect you do. So, stay the course and see it through.
Action: Drive people to your site and email list with guest posts, guest interviews and guest tutorials. Give your best stuff away to the most successful bloggers you can find. Focus on big names and big wins. Be good, then be bold. Don’t even think about stopping, or changing niche, until you’ve got 10,000 introverts (in pain, looking for help) on your newsletter list.