Devoted to branding and building and protecting brands

Make no mistake, your Web site is an invaluable resource -- an asset that's growing more important as customers and prospective customers do their comparative shopping online.  And growing more important as they decide to investigate further, or pass you by, based on their response to how you're engaging them.  Here's what they're looking for:

10. Never forget that people want products they believe will, in some way, improve their lives.  If yours doesn't, improve it (your product).

9.  Be sure you describe HOW your stuff will accomplish the above (read: sell the benefits of your product's features, not the features by themselves).

8.  People aren't going to waste time figuring out how to get from here to there, to there, to over there on your site.  If it's not idiot-proof easy to get around your site, you're an idiot.

7.  Find out where the eyeballs are going.  If it's not where you want them to go, fix it.  Wherever they do go, put your key information there.  

6.  Don't fall in love with any element of your site that doesn't reciprocate, i.e., deliver somekind of productive response.

5.  Read "Tested Advertising Methods" by John Caples.  A classic.  

4.  Read "Confessions of an Advertising Man" by David Ogilvie.  THE classic.

3.  Read "Net Words" by Nick Usborne. Maybe not quite in the league of 5 and 4 above, but worthwhile. 

2.  Make testimonials and the proof points of your product prominent everywhere on your site, and make them simple and compelling.  Show how the benefits of your product made a significant difference.

1.  Test, test, and test again.  A Web site is a work in progress.  Check out the newsmedia sites.  Study the headlines, especially. Make your site more like theirs.  You'll be rewarded.