Don't underestimate your visitors

All websites are built for a reason, and that's to have visitors be able to see it and hopefully contact you. Why then do we underestimate how smart these visitors are? Time and time again I've heard web designers, SEOs and other marketers say "but our visitors won't get that". I think that what we are forgetting who those visitors are.

Website visitors aren't just computer-illiterate users!
I know it may be hard to believe, but people who visit your website may have actually used another website before! They may have even been on other computers too! OK, enough with the sarcasm, but I honestly think that we sometimes think our website visitors are coming to our website on their first day of using a computer. But lets stop for a minute and think about who those visitors might be.

Lets say that you own an electronics store, and you sell everything from laptops to flat panel TVs on your website. Now lets consider who typically is buying these things. They are usually pretty tech savvy people, and if they aren't their friend or relative is who is helping them purchase the item. Those tech savvy users like to know the details of what makes that particular digital camera work, they want to know about the mega-pixals, zoom ratio, etc. So it would be smart of you as the store owner to provide that information.

Now what about a more simple product like clothing. Well that visitor could be anyone, but lets narrow this down a bit to baby clothing. Your typical shopper is going to be the mother/father or relative. You can bet that the expecting mother wants to know what the article of clothing was made out of, how it washes, and if it has been fire tested. So again, why not give them this information?

Too quickly, we dumb things down:
It seems that we are often times overly concerned with saving time, and dumbing things down. These things certainly have their place, for instance in an emergency you don't want an exit sign that gives every turn; rather a sign with an arrow that leads to the next sign with an arrow is much quicker and more efficient. But the last time I checked, we aren't looking for our visitors to find the quickest way out.

Providing a valuable product along with relevant information, even if it seems like "the visitor won't read it", is important. Sure, not everyone who comes to your website is going to read it, but some people will. For those people that want the information your site has just stood out from the crowd. You've provided that visitor not only with the information they were looking for but the trust that they can count on you to educate and inform them on what they are purchasing.

Quality is more important than brevity:
I would much rather have quality information that happens to be a little on the lengthy side in terms of information then have a site that is so brief on information it doesn't answer all of the visitors questions. You have to remember, these people are purchasing something from you that they could purchase somewhere else if they don't feel like you've satisfied their need, so make sure you are providing as much information as possible, not just the shortest amount of information.

Remember: You are a visitor at other sites, do you like being treated like a toddler? Probably not, so why treat your visitors that way?

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization