Don’t Say “Welcome”

I’ve encountered numerous sites which have opening text which reads something like this:

Welcome to our store! We have a lot of really great products for you to browse through. Please come in and look around, we’re really glad you’re here!

Bad text. For SEO, and for people, that text just used three sentences to say absolutely nothing of value.

The goal in the first sentence is to tell people why they can benefit from being there, not to ramble about YOU.

“Welcome” is a useless word in the web world, for the most part. Businesses that earn, don’t, as a rule, use it. There are a limited number of words that you have, with which to catch the attention of your reader, and impact the search engines, and those words primarily fall within the first heading, and the first paragraph of the site. You’d better use them wisely, to get an effective message across. “Welcome”, is about how YOU feel. The first sentences should be about how THEY feel.

I’m not talking about telling them WHAT to feel. I’m talking about giving a high impact message that helps IDENTIFY with their needs, and that lets them know quickly whether they’ve come to the right place or not.  That involves keywords, to be certain, but it also involves appealing sentences that give those keywords meaning to the reader.

On a website, “welcome” IS an important MESSAGE. But it isn’t something you SAY. It is something you indicate by getting to the point, by being considerate and giving them what they came looking for in a fast, intuitive, and logical manner. “Welcome”, then, becomes less of a WORD, and more of a way of thinking - comfortable navigation, pleasing colors and arrangements, words and graphics that give a cohesive message and help the visitor get what they want easily.

Your website should, in fact, welcome the visitor in, make them feel valued, and cared about. So make sure your first sentence gives that message by appealing to their needs and desires. Get to the point - with high impact, meaningful phrases. This will increase the value to search engines, and help to convert visitors to customers more effectively as well.