Bringing Life to a Website… real-life
by
Bill Kaye
Bill Kaye
Let me tell you a story.
I wanted to buy a new lawn mower.
I love cutting grass. It’s one of the best household chores, in my opinion, because of the results you get… a pristine, beautiful lawn, the envy of the neighborhood. It’s also a job you can do without thinking about it, and your mind can wander. I write while I mow. Some of my best ideas, some of my favorite flashes of inspiration, have come to me when I cut the grass. And the best thing is, I get to do it again, next week.
So because I needed a new mower, I did my research on the internet. It had been about eight or nine years since I’d bought my last one, one of those odd-looking things with big rear wheels that look stupid, until you actually use them and see how much easier it makes the job. It was a good, serviceable mower, but it was starting to rust out on the underside, was becoming harder and harder to start, and I just needed to get a new one.
You see, although I like cutting the grass, I don’t want to kill myself doing it.
I don’t have that large a lawn, so I don’t need a riding mower. But just for kicks, I looked at a top of the line, 50-inch zero-turn radius tractor.
$2200 bucks.
But it had a cupholder.
All it needed was a roof and a jack for my iPod, and I’d be set.
And though a desire to decrease my carbon footprint and become “greener” made me consider an unpowered push reel mower, my lawn is too big, and not flat enough. The thought of shoving that baby up and down my sloping lawn was too much.
So I narrowed the choices down to a rotary, with at least a 19-inch cut, self-propelled, of course. That’s when the real work started.
Would I want gas or electric? Corded or cordless?
With the price of gas, electric would be a better choice.
But electric cords are cumbersome; they have to be long enough to reach the far corner of my yard and snake around trees and shrubs, and you’re constantly tossing the cord away from you so you don’t run over it. The flowerbed is always in jeopardy. When the lawn is done, you have to roll up the cord. If you’re trying to beat the rain, that’s a big drawback.
On the other hand, with a cordless you have to make sure it can cut the entire lawn on a full charge. And what if I’d forget to plug it in when I was done, and next Saturday morning I’d go to start it and… nothing. Dead. “No lawn mowing today, honey. What else is on my To Do List?”
Despite the price of gas, I decided gas-powered was best for me and my lawn.
Now came the fun part.
What brand?
Where would I buy it?
Within five miles, I have a Lowe’s and a Home Depot, as well as stand-alone Honda, Toro and John Deere stores, and three independent hardware stores that sell mowers. Cool. Just like buying a car.
Don’t want that.
Not yet. Gotta do more research.
So because I love the information the internet offers, I googled “lawn mowers.” (Don’t you love all the free plugs?)
And was I ever disappointed.
On one of the Big Box stores’ sites, I clicked on “lawn mowers,” then “self-propelled,” then “gas-powered.” I found a jumping-off point for what I wanted: a page full of pictures, with descriptions for each of the choices. There were also five more pages, but you know how I feel about that. And still I had to scroll down just to see all of those first 12!
The models were grouped by price, high to low, but I could have re-ordered by low to high, or by brand. I could even click on a box below each product to compare it with other models. Very convenient, but again, too much like buying a car.
Because I like buying products that will last, rather than lower-priced brands I will likely have to replace more often, I chose the highest-priced model on the page, a John Deere:
John Deere 8.75 Ft/Lbs Torque 21" Cut Self-Propelled Gas Push Mower-- $519.00
That was all the information.
All right, fine, there wasn’t enough room on the page for a more complete description, I understood that. So I clicked on the picture… nothing happened. Then I tried the description line and was grateful to be switched to a page just for that model. It had lots of information, including features and a list of specifications.
But I wasn’t bowled over by the description. Maybe I would have been, if I were seeing it at the John Deere dealer, but this page didn’t “wow” me. Remember, I like mowing the lawn, so my tools for mowing had better wow me, too.
So, I clicked back, off the product page, off the category page, and out to my Google search box. I typed in “lawn mower reviews” and found several consumer sites, selected one that I didn’t have to be a member of, and clicked on that. I found a “best luxury self-propelled” that cost nearly $900, a Honda. It gave me some intriguing reasons to investigate further: it was also a mulcher and bagger, and you could even set the percentage you wanted to mulch and/or bag. It met California’s strict emission standards, and even though I don’t live in California, I liked that the mower was better for the environment. And it had a rustproof deck. (Big plus because my current mower was rusting out). Okay, I was intrigued, even though it noted that the model wasn’t carried by all dealers and was hard to find.
I clicked on the link and it took me to another page that showed me where to buy most of the mowers, but not this model. Guess it really was too hard to find, even for the site’s editors.
I clicked back again to the previous page, highlighted the model number and copied it, then backed out and pasted it into my Google box, and found the Honda mower site, then a link to the actual model. Cool. I was closer.
I clicked on it and got this description:
Honda HRX217K2HMA
• Cyclon Electric Start One Charge, 300 Start System includes Charging Cord
• MicroCut Twin Blade System with four cutting surfaces for finer clippings
• Honda Cruise Control variable speed Hydrostatic transmission
• Honda Roto-Stop® BBC: start and stop the blades with the engine running
• 21" rust-free Nexite™ cutting deck with Limited Lifetime Warranty
• 4-in-1 Versamow System with Clip Director
Hmmm, all that was nice, but I still wanted more details… what the heck is a “4-in-1 Versamow System with Clip Director?” Ah.. buttons for “Features” and “Specifications.” Now we’re getting somewhere.
But on the Features button, I got exactly what I’d just read above, with some additions:
• Mulch, bag, discharge or leaf shred with no parts to lose, no tools required
• 7-position height adjustment
• Manual Fuel shut off valve
• Large 9” ball bearing wheels
• Quick release 3-position handle for easy height adjustment and storage
Well, that was all very interesting, but I wanted to look more closely look at the specs.
I discovered additionally that it has a manual choke, it’s belt-driven, has plastic wheels, the bagger is rear, not side, bag capacity is 2.5 bushels, that the handle is 1” steel, its dry weight is 98 pounds (operating weight 101 lbs.) and the ground speed is 0-4.0 m.p.h. (But how many seconds does it take to go from 0-4?)
Now, I’m not the most technical person, so I don’t know if a hydrostatic tranny is better than some other kind, if plastic wheels are better than steel or aluminum, if rear bagging is preferred to side bagging, or vice versa. I never knew that an operating weight would be different from the “dry” weight… is that because it’s carrying gas, or because clippings are getting stuck up in there? And for the life of me, I don’t know if 2.5 bushels is a lot, or only an average-sized capacity. And how many pecks is that? For that matter, how big is a peck?
And I still didn’t know any more about the 4-in-1 Versamow System with Clip Director.
So far, I’d gone to a lot of trouble. I’d done a lot of research to get where I was. I knew a lot about this machine. I knew that a consumer site thinks it’s a pretty good mower (although a little pricey and hard-to-find).
I’d clicked a lot of times to get there.
But what I didn’t know was if it was a good fit for me.
With all those features, I had a starting point, I could compare it with other mowers if I wanted to, or I could go to my local Honda dealer and ask for details and a demo. Which I’ll do, of course, if I decide that this is the mower for me.
I could probably do the same for lots of other models and brands, until I think I have enough knowledge to actually go look at them in person.
But where are the benefits?
Other than that brief description of the mulching/bagging option, that there are “no parts to lose, no tools needed” and that the handle has adjustments for “easy height adjustment and storage,” there’s not a single benefit that tells me this is a better mower than any others I might research. And I had to go to a consumer site to find out the really neat feature, that I can specify what percentage I want to bag and how much I want mulched. But I don’t know why that’s good.
This is not meant to pick on Honda. I could go to many other sites and find the same sort of Features and Specs listings. That’s all well and good if I already know why some features are desirable, if I’m a Professional Lawn Service Technician, for example.
But I’m a consumer.
An end-user.
A “you tell me what button to push, and I’ll take it from there” kind of guy.
Imagine if I had found something like this on the site..
“I’m sitting on my deck enjoying a cool adult beverage on a lazy summer afternoon. Birds are chirping, and I hear that faint, ever-present buzz of the cicadas that can be heard in late July. There will be crickets singing at nightfall, looking for love.
“And in the distance, I hear my neighbor Tom, toiling away on his lawn. He started about the same time I did, and our yards are about the same size. But I’ve been done for twenty minutes and he’s still disturbing the peace of the neighborhood.
“I look over at my Honda 21-inch self-propelled bagger/mulcher as it cools down in front of the storage shed, and I know Tom is envious. He watched me start it with a touch of a button while he cranked away on his rope.. he finally started his after three back-straining yanks… and I was already starting my second pass before he was even beginning to trudge along behind his.
“I could tell you all the reasons my Honda is a better choice, like its Cruise Control and four cutting surfaces, the fact that I can choose how much of the clippings I want to bag and how much I want to mulch, but all I know is that I’m sitting here, done for the day, while he’s still struggling. My back doesn’t ache like I know Tom’s will later on. And I’m enjoying my summer ale and admiring my beautifully manicured lawn.
“I smile at my wife as she brings us a cheese plate, ‘just to nibble on,’ before I start the grill.
“Life is good.”
Now, would you be more interested in that mower?
It’s the same mower I read about on the Honda product page.
But in just a few paragraphs, I painted a picture… describing the benefits of the generous cutting swath, its efficiency, easy starting, quickness and ease of use, all without going into the deadly dull specs. If I were writing the webpage, I’d also include those features and specs, of course, but adding vividly described benefits will sharply ramp up interest in a product that most people think of as a necessary evil.
I wasn’t offering a product for sale, I was selling it.
It’s basically a testimonial, if you think about it. How many websites do something like this?
Some of the best-selling printed catalogs do something similar: the J Crew catalogue comes to mind, and Victoria’s Secret… but you don’t see it done very often on the internet. The absolutely crazy thing is: on the internet you’re not limited by the size of the ad, or the number of pages in the catalogue… you’ve got all the room in the world to tell a story in as much detail as you want.
I know, I know, you’re reminding me about the Seven Second Rule.
But tell the truth… even if you were in a hurry to find the product you wanted, and you stumbled across a descriptive passage like this, wouldn’t you read it? Wouldn’t you be curious, wondering what it had to do with a lawn mower? Wouldn’t you allow more than seven seconds?
Of course you would, because people love to be told stories. Especially stories about themselves.
Because even though I was the one telling the story, what man who ever mowed a lawn couldn’t relate? We all appreciate a job well-done, a job that doesn’t break your back, a tool that delivers on its promises.
And just about everyone can appreciate relaxing on a lazy summer afternoon, enjoying a cold drink, and admiring a beautifully mowed lawn.
But how can you consistently paint this picture, and guide your visitors toward an emotional response?
One way to spark immediate interest is with a “roll-over” pop-up box… the mouse rolls over a picture of the product and a new box opens, with the product shown in more detail. If the customer likes what he sees, he can click on the descriptive link to go to the separate sales page.
But this new sales page is accessible only within your site, and harder for the search engines to find. Wouldn’t it be better to have this new sales page globally available to anyone using the right combination of words?
And that's another story, dealing with landing pages, SEO, PPC, links, long-form keywords and every method possible to bring visitors to your site when they weren't originally expecting to find you. It's not trickery. And your friendly worldwide copywriter has a major hand in it.
Want More Tips?
Find out more in the e-book A Roomful Of Monkeys: Copywriting Secrets to PowerBoost Your Website
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