The World of Web Pages

Chapter 5

Safko, The Social Media Bible

So let me get this straight: More than two-thirds of the world’s population DOESN’T use the internet? Safko quotes statistics to say there are an estimated 1.8 billion Internet users worldwide. But it often seems like everybody – that would be about 7 billion people, worldwide – is online. Still, any medium that reaches this many of the world’s people is amazing.

The sales funnel model should be useful in assessing my web site. Web masters ought to ask themselves which part of the funnel – awareness, search, research or buy – each page addresses. If that page doesn’t address any of the four, does it have a purpose? It’s easy to fill a web site with information that WE feel is interesting, but we have to ask ourselves if we’re meeting our clients’ needs. A related question: does each page provide a WIIFM?

Other concepts from this chapter that I found useful:

• Again, like the previous chapter, content is king.
• Treat each page as a potential landing page.
• Put the message “above the fold.”
• What is each page’s intended conversion: what do we want the reader to do as a result of visiting this page?
• Be sure to keep your site up to date. This is a task that is often overlooked, in my opinion. It costs to have a staff member responsible for this task, and it might be difficult to measure the payback. But it’s essential.
• Look, ma! No serifs!