We were recently robbed at gunpoint at home. We were tied up, made to lie on the floor and our faces were covered with a blanket that happened to be conveniently nearby. In retrospect, we were treated fairly gently by the intruders. We were not harmed physically except for a few minor bruises from the cable-ties that they used to tie us together, and they made sure that we could not see their faces so that we didn’t have to be shot.

These guys were in and out of our house in about 20 minutes. They knew exactly what they were “shopping” for – items of value that were easy to pick up and carry like laptops, jewellery and so on. The only time they spoke to us was to ask us the location of our safe, which they simply used a crowbar to remove from the wall in order to open it later at their convenience, and to keep assuring us that they were watching to make sure that we didn’t do anything stupid.

Your potential customers go online knowing what they are looking for. How easy do you make it for them to find:
1. Your online shop, website or presence;
2. The information, item or whatever they are looking for?

I think that most of us time-pressed individuals (and believe me, our assailants were time-pressed) want to be in and out with what they want as quickly as possible and we sometimes get so carried away by our own verbiage and lengthy descriptions that the essence of what services we provide or what products we are selling get lost in translation.

The next time you review your online presence, imagine a gun to your head and someone telling you to keep it simple and show them quickly where they can find what they want. I’d be interested to know what a difference this makes to how you view your “store” and how you are selling yourself, your services and your products.