8. Main Pages v Article Pages

In this section we are going to look at the differences between main pages and article pages, and how those differences dictate how we should write those pages. Once we have that covered this, we can then actually create some pages.

The differences have been mentioned before, but let’s look at them in a little more detail.

Main pages pre-sell "products". They are often targeting more competitive phrases because of their nature.

Pre-selling is a term used to describe how you get your visitors into a buying mood, before they even reach the merchant’s site. Pre-selling increases your conversion rates, and turns more visitors into buyers – it is that important.

You could create main pages that pre-sell the actual product itself, or you could create main pages that pre-sell the merchants that sell the products.

e.g. Suppose you are building a website about dolls. You might decide that you want the following main pages:

Barbie Dolls

Cabbage Patch Dolls

G.I. Joe

Polly Pocket

Doll’s Houses

Let’s take the first phrase, "Barbie Dolls".

Your choice here is to either:

Pre-sell Barbie dolls to your visitors, or

Pre-sell the merchants that sell the Barbie Dolls.

Whichever variation you choose, you must pre-sell your visitor so that he/she wants to buy a Barbie Doll and the only question they have is “Where from?”. Of course you supply the answer to that.

Simply put, if you choose to pre-sell the doll, your page is written about the Barbie Doll. If you choose to pre-sell the merchants, your page is written about the merchants.

One of the easiest ways to pre-sell anything, is to review it. As long as you actually like the item you are reviewing, this is not too difficult. We will look more at pre-selling in the next chapter, but let’s just quickly think how we could pre-sell the doll, or the merchants.

If you are pre-selling the doll, review the doll.

You could include things like:

How sturdy the doll is.

Target audience (age group) of the doll.

Range of accessories that are available for the doll (an opportunity to send your visitors to a different main page pre-selling doll accessories).

How fun the doll is to play with (often, heart-warming stories of the endless fun your own son or daughter has with this doll are great pre-sellers).

Try to connect on a personal level with your visitors. Make them believe that you are a real person, and you know what you are talking about.

If you are pre-selling the merchant, why not review the merchant. Things like:

How easy their website is to navigate.

How easy it is to order from them.

How good their customer support is.

Any guarantee they provide.

and so on.

Crafting pages in this way, adds value to the Internet, meaning your site wont be labelled as "thin".

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