When you surf the net, there is one thing that we can pretty much bank on you doing each and every time you log on.

READING

Obviously, thats exactly why persuasive copy is so critical to your conversion.

As a faithful blog reader we wanted to give you a heads up about an opportunity to learn more about writing persuasively on the web.

Count yourself invited to the…

Persuasive Online Copywriting Seminar When? – November 11th-12th Where? – The Cool New Future Now digs in Brooklyn’s…

...continue to read "Online Persuasion Is All About WORDS"

J. Lipton was recently seen interviewing our very own little green alien, The Grok. I just got my mitts on the transcript of that interview.

What is your favorite word?

You can imagine I had a hard time at first figuring out which words were legit. For instance, I feel in love with the word “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”. But then someone told me that was a little juvenile. So I moved on to “frabjous”, which still makes me smile. For a real word, I’m…

...continue to read "Interview with The Grok"

When out and about, while being introduced, or giving out my business card, the conversation typically rolls along like this…

“Senior Persuasion Architect? Hmmmm sounds like a fancy title, what exactly do you do?”

“I help Future Now clients do the work of improving and building more persuasive websites” I answer.

That is my short answer. As you might expect, some find this answer unsatisfying…go figure.

So the next time I sense the other party wanting a tad more detail and elaboration, I…

...continue to read "What Does A Senior Persuasion Architect Do Anyways?"

Unless forking out more dollars for getting much less in return actually excites you, now is the time to get wide eyed about increasing your conversion rate and site ROI.

Keyword costs are quickly mounting to Everest proportions with no end on the horizon, and even if you can afford the costs, losing a visitor that cost you $5 bucks to get has gotta hurt. More must be done to propel those pricey and precious prospects toward conversion.

Have no fear, Persuasion…

...continue to read "Are Visitors Pay Per Clicking Your Company into the Poorhouse?"

User Centric Design is a tool, but not the solution to constructing a more persuasive and effective website.

Ease of use, and user experience, abliet VERY IMPORTANT, are not meant to address the complexities of needs and motivations visitors carry with them as they land on your site.

You need something more robust than a User Centered Design approach if you are gonna hit all those Key Performance Indicators goals you have set for your company.

The User-Centric Design Trap

User-centric design’s (UCD’s) aim is…

...continue to read "Your Site’s Visitors May Not Be Users"

In the last post we surmised that the Bush site has a clear advantage over the Kerry site in the areas of A.I.D.A.S. and likely a slight edge in the area of Usability.

In short, the Bush site has more relevant and better labeled content that is more likely to steer visitors towards our inferred conversion goals. One of the conversion goals is to allow media and political junkies to access news, and download media clips. Again the Bush site…

...continue to read "Would You Let Bush or Kerry Design Your Site? Part 3"

Participation in Future Now’s customer-focused online retail survey highlights frustrating practices.

Things are buzzing around here. It’s time for our annual Online Retail Study for Customer Focused Excellence. We’ve got our Excel sheets prepared, and we’re motivated to buy. We find something that trips our trigger (within budget, the accountant chimes in), we can purchase it. Of course, I would get assigned stores like golfballs.com (the balls are about the right size, but the clubs?) and gloss.com (you ever try to…

...continue to read "The Grok’s Biggest Gripes"

Last post we started our series by digging a little deeper and making some assumptions of exactly what a presidential campaign election website would likely need to accomplish. To rehash, here are the refined site objectives that we inferred…

1) For candidate faithful – the site must reinforce, invigorate, and help candidate faithful by giving them information and inspiration. To use Future Now Conversion Assessment terms this is the A.I.D.A.S factor.

A.I.D.A.S – The ability of the site to sustain a…

...continue to read "Would You Let Bush or Kerry Design Your Site? Part 2"

Since President Bush shamelessly promoted his own website during his acceptance speech last week I’ve had somewhat of an obsession with his site as well as his competitor, Mr. Kerry’s site.

From the perspective of a Persuasion Architect there is alot to be fascinated with when you consider a Presidential campaign website, and I think there is also a lot to be learned as we dissect both of these sites.

So let’s put politics aside, and study JohnKerry.com and GeorgeWBush.com as sites, and…

...continue to read "Would You Let Bush or Kerry Design Your Site? Part 1"

The all seeing, all powerful Bryan Eisenberg just wrapped up a 3 week ClickZ Article series on Web Analytics.

Pour some coffee, find a comfortable reading nook, and click these 3 articles. Oh yeah, clear a little room in your wallet, you will probably need it.

Part One Part Two Part Three

...continue to read "Web Analytics For Retailers"