What the Beijing Olympics can teach us about Internet Marketing
Monday, August 25th, 2008
Being judged.
I was watching the Summer Olympics and it struck me that Michael Phelps (swimming), Nastia Liukin (gymnastics) and Lolo Jones (track and field), along with all the other athletes, each spend years and years training and practicing, for that one brief performance, that one shot at gold that may only take a few seconds or a minute, and then it's over.
Can you imagine putting in all that effort and time and then being judged for it in just a matter of seconds?
Guess what? You are.
Every visitor that comes to your site judges what you've created and in a moment decides whether or not to stay and investigate further or click away to your competitors. If you don't satisfy your visitor that they're in the right place, that you have what they want and that it's easy for them to get to, they're gone.
There usually aren't any second chances.
Each visitor that comes to your website is an opportunity for you to score gold - to sign them up, subscribe them, sell them, to make them a customer. If you don't do it the first time out, you probably won't get a second chance. At least the Olympic athletes can try again in four years, your turn is over.
You may have optimized the heck out of your search engine marketing, promoted yourself with all the newest social media techniques, written blogs, recorded podcasts and stuffed your website with the greatest quality content. But if after knocking on your door, no one wants to come inside and check out the rest of the house, does it really matter?
Grab the gold.
Since you don't usually get a second chance to make a first impression, you better make the first one count. You do that by looking at your website from the client's perspective, the only one that really matters
Just as the Olympic athletes try new techniques and change their training regimens in order to improve and optimize their performance, you also need to test and improve every aspect of your website.
The advantage you have over the Olympians, is that you don't have to wait four years to see if your efforts have paid off.
