In Blog Readers Are Selfish, Darren Rowse says,

So knowing this information, and knowing that people make up their minds very quickly whether to stay on a website or not (most seem to stay on blogs for just seconds), it’s important to give your potential reader a reason to stay and explore your blog.

Tell them ‘what’s in it for them’ – and tell them loudly, quickly and clearly.

Don’t hide the answer to that question away on an about page, or at the bottom of an in depth article on the benefits of your blog.

This applies equally to any ADR website intended as a marketing tool, whether it’s a blog or a static (traditional) website. Not sure if your site gets the message across clearly? Ask a couple of friends to visit only the home page on your site and tell you what they see as the benefit for them. Is there consistency in their response? If not, back to the drawing board.

And keep this in mind: Not all your site’s visitors will arrive first on the home page. If they found you via a search engine, they could land initially on any of the pages of your site, depending on their search terms. So every page needs to convey your “what’s in it for me [the reader]?” message clearly.

As Darren pointed out, you only have a few seconds to get their attention before they decide to move on.

Liked this post? A few others to consider:

1. Visitors to Your Site: Who Are They and What Do They Want?
2. Mediation marketing and management vault, august 2007
3. Are Big Turn-Offs Lurking on Your Website Homepage?
4. Do prospective clients care that you blog?
5. The Mediation Marketing and Management Vault, February 2007