XSitePro Templates

I recently built an XSitePro template for a massage therapist. When he saw the template, he was thrilled. I was pleased, of course, but didn't expect to hear anything more because he was the client of a business associate, not my direct client.

My associate did the copywriting and search engine optimization for the site, basing the SEO on the same principles found in James Schramko's XSP Cheat Sheet.

Today my associate called me to say she'd been trying to get hold of the client for a few days to okay some changes he'd asked her to do. Turns out he'd been too busy to get back to her because the response from the Web site was so great he'd had to hire two more massage therapists!

Now, here's the clincher... he'd had a Web site for several years prior to this and never made a single penny from it. What was the difference? Much as I'd love to think my gorgeous XSitePro template was the answer, truthfully it all hinged on one thing: choosing the right keyword phrase to optimize the site for.

Instead of talking about his education and throwing around all kinds of medical jargon about muscles and ligaments and stuff, which is what the original site focused on, my associate focused instead on the keyword phrase "pain relief."

And how did my associate know what to optimize the site for? She simply asked the owner of the clinic why people came for a massage and his answer was "pain relief."

You want to know something interesting? At this point, the traffic to the site had not increased at all, but now the people who landed on the home page saw immediately what they wanted to see: PAIN RELIEF! They didn't see anything about how many years the massage therapists had spent in school, or the names of all the muscles in the back.

If you say you can relieve their pain and your Web site looks half way professional, people won't be reading your biography; they'll be picking up the phone to make an appointment! And that's exactly what happened.

It's all about the benefits.

People don't buy a Lexus because of its superior technology. They buy it for the way other people perceive them, for the prestige. They might justify their purchase with logic later, but first, it's all about the emotions. Beside a huge photo of an incredibly beautiful Lexus, it says, "Now you can be seen in something stylish every day."

If you asked yourself why people come to your business, what one phrase would you use? What would it say beside a photo of you or your product? Remember, it's all about the benefits. Ask yourself what problem are your customers trying to solve or avoid (money, pain, frustration) or what void are they trying to fill (loneliness, low self-esteem, lack of knowledge)?

By the way, if you sell a product or service that fills a void, you're laughing because people's voids are never filled up. How many cookbooks do cooks own? How many ebooks do Internet marketers buy? How many lipsticks do women own? Our need for things that fill up our personal voids is insatiable.