Читать книгу Business Writing for the Web - Dan Furman - Страница 11

Nothing sexy or outrageous here, but if you were looking for voice mail (or VOIP), this would state perfectly that the information you want is right there. And that’s what my clients were looking for.

Now this almost seems obvious, but it really isn’t. Before I wrote the web copy for my voice mail client, the headline was more results-oriented (because that’s probably what some web copy book said to do). It was something like “Never miss a call again.” Well, that’s all well and good, but it’s really a pretty narrow focus. I realize voice mail exists so you don’t miss calls, but is anyone really thinking “I don’t want to miss calls” as they look for a voice mail provider? Or, do they just say, “I need voice mail”? I don’t know for sure, because (thankfully) I’m not in everyone’s head, but I don’t think I’m making too big a leap when I say they are probably thinking more along the lines of “voice mail” than “missed calls.” I think it’s because our minds already made the connection for us; we already figured out that missed calls equals voice mail, so we look for voice mail.

This is true for most things we look for; we already make connections. When we want water to go from one place in our house to another, we look for a plumber. Yes, we really want the water to go from here to there, and that’s the true reason we’re searching, but leading off the website with “water moved through your house” is probably nowhere near as effective as “local plumber ready to help you.”

Again, my point with these somewhat outrageous examples is that I don’t want you to over-think these things. There’s a tendency for people to want to get witty and clever when writing headlines. There’s nothing witty or clever about the voice mail headline (or the entire site I wrote, for that matter), but it pulls business (which is exactly what my client wanted).

Okay, here’s a headline that’s (a little) more hype-filled: