These ladies are laughing at you. Why? You designed your web site for your needs, not their needs. It gets worse. After they stop laughing, they’re going to one of your competitors’ sites and buy something.

Write these two sentences where you can see them as you’re working on your computer:

1. The only reason my web site exists is to solve my customers’ problems.

2. What problems does the page I’m looking at solve?

Nobody cares about you or your site. Really. What visitors care about is getting their problems solved. Most people visit a web site to solve one or more of the following three problems.

1. They want/need information
2. They want/need to make a purchase / donation.
3. They want/need to be entertained.

Too many organizations believe that a web site is about opening a new marketing channel or getting donations or to promote a brand. No. It’s about solving your customers’ problems.

ThinkBox

Attention, “thinking inside the box” is not so??¬†bad.

That’s right, thinking inside the box is not a bad thing. Recently I have seen a lot of bad work being done ???????outside the box??????. Here inside the box, I don’t often use glittering words like “visionary” or “catalyst” — but instead ones like “deadline” ???????quality?????? and “deliverable.” If you have some time, perhaps more people could float their useless thoughts back inside the box before there is no box.

Thought: If everyone is ???????thinking outside the box?????? it would seem they would all be back in the same box again?