Rhetoric & Design - Attract Them

February 23, 2004 | View Comments (11) | Category: Web Experience

Summary: Rhetoric and Design: A discussion of why users are attracted towards your site.

In the first part of the series I gave a general overview of the art of rhetoric and how it could be applied to web design. Anytime you wish to attract people to your site, you are trying to invoke persuasive communication upon them, that will convince them that your site is worth their time. We all have the general understanding that we need to attract people to our message, but how does the process of attraction work?

The Two Steps

Aristotle felt that there were two things that worked together to attract people to a message. The first was to establish credibility with an audience. It answered the question "Why should I listen to you?" The second requirement for attracting people to a message was to provide the minimum amount of information necessary to answer the question "What's in it for me?"

John Lenker, Train of Thoughts

A large majority of the higher ranking blogs are run by individuals who have major credentials working with them and therefore already establish a credibility with their audience. If Scoble didn't work for Microsoft his voice would not be as loud. Same might go for others such as Zawodny and Ruby. No disrespect meant at all to these guys, but if they didn't work for such high profiles companies you have to wonder would they have the audience they do now? In this community it is hard to establish credentials because not too many of us are known for working for the big guys where we are able to work on high profile sites. Bowman and Cederholm were fortunate to do so and therefore gain the credentials to be listened to by everyone (besides having wonderful sites).

The only way I could build credentials was to offer a consistent message over time. Of course it doesn't hurt that I post frequently and created the Vault and Version2, which help to increase my exposure. But my credibility is still based on the opinions of my audience and if they do not think I am a worthwhile read, then I could go about writing till the end of time with no audience.

Your information is useless though if it does nothing for the reader. "Link blogs" that just post links to other sites serve their purpose at times, but if you wish to build an audience, why not also offer some small insight with each of those links. There is a good chance the reader has already seen the link on another site anyways, so you might as well offer something new.

Other factors

Of course there are other issues besides credentials which will keep visitors coming to your site. These include, but are not limited to:

Appropriateness of your message

The quicker you establish why your message is appropriate for your audience the better. For blogs this could be as simple as using descriptive titles for your entries. For other sites good page titles help establish the message. You know you have overdesigned a site when the message gets lost in the design. The design should only be used as a backdrop to the message. Something that enhances it and clarifies it for the reader.

Many people wonder how they can get people to come to their website. There are many factors involved and all of them go beyond just sticking your site up on the web. If you wish for your site to go beyond the "15 minutes of fame" then maybe you should check to see if your sites employ the points made above. Lastly, building a quality site and developing quality traffic takes time. So have patience and just keep on pushing.

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Comments

#1

Good post.

Content is always the top priority. People come to a site because they want something, and if your site cannot provide what they are looking for, then they move on. So keeping your site up to date, posting alot of information frequently, and building your web credibility will work 90% of the time I would bet.

Just my 2 cents

Bryan (http://www.gamecubecheats.info)

#2

A great example of the power of content has can be seen with the CSS Vault. Whenever I link to a site they will see their traffic go up dramatically for a day or two, but if there content is useless and their message is not well presented, then you start to see their levels drop off again.

Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)

#3

"but if there content is useless and their message is not well presented"

Hmm.. So I should go and make some good content then? ;-]

In addition to your points, I also find frequent posting is important too.

I come here and to others that post often - Some sites that I used to visit everyday are now off the list; a lucky two of those have survived because of their 'blog rolls'.

"Give me good content, and give me a reason to keep coming back before I forget about your site." (Kinda seems demanding, no?)

Mike P. (http://www.fiftyfoureleven.com.com/sandbox/weblog/)

#4

Hell, that's not demanding at all. That should be expected. All of this just follows the same philosophy that is preached here and a thousand other places of making content king. However, I am still suprised by how many people ask me how to create a successful blog or whatnot. It's a simple answer.

Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)

#5

It is simple. Everywhere you look content is king, blogs, search engines, directories, that's a no brainer...

However, there are those of us who have a lot to say but can't find the time to say it!

Look, for example, to two busy people of late at Stopdesign and mezzoblue...

Mike P. (http://www.fiftyfoureleven.com.com/sandbox/weblog/)

#6

Right. I'm not whining there, and I fully agree with your here, btw:

"However, I am still suprised by how many people ask me how to create a successful blog or whatnot. It's a simple answer."

Mike P. (http://www.fiftyfoureleven.com.com/sandbox/weblog/)

#7

Yeah, I am sure everyone would like to see Bowman write more frequently. It's nice to learn from the top people or at least know what they are thinking.

Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)

#8

I think that the perceived need to develop high traffic is a distraction that takes pleasure out of what you do. It has become a web obsession and the only criterion of worth many are capable of grasping. Selling a large amount of books doesn't make you a great writer, for instance. Samuel Beckett was never a best-seller, his books were published in very small editions, yet he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. There are numerous examples of people who struggled in obscurity only to be recognised later. Recognition has its own time, more important is to do what you want to do to the best of your ability. If you become obsessed with recognition you will end up pandering to those fickle things that people imagine gives them recognition. You may even gain recognition. But probably at a cost. Forget about recognition and high traffic, just do what you do. And if what you do is worthwhile, people will recognise it. It doesn't matter how many.

Joel (http://biroco.com/)

#9

Ah, yes you are right in a sense Joel. I totally agree with what you are saying when it comes to personal sites. Personal sites are definitely for our own fulfillment. However, for commercial sites and sites looking to make money need visitors and those are the people who are looking for ways to attract people. Would you not agree with this?

Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)

#10

Scrivs, I tend to think a commercial outlet does better as part of a more personal site or interest anyway. A successful commercial site only has to have one thing: something people want to buy, and preferably something they can't get elsewhere. A friend of mind invented an electronic device, he sells it on the internet and does very well. He attracts buyers to his site because he is known in the field and those buyers know they can't get this product anywhere else. That to me is a successful commercial site. This product came out of a 20-year interest in the field in which he became known. He simply pursued what he was interested in, and had a website devoted to this interest. When he invented his product his market was already there. He branched out into selling electronic components as well, and did even better.

It boils down to: what have you got to sell, do people want it, and how many other people are trying to sell the same thing? Get that right, and the rest I suspect will take care of itself. After all, there must be thousands of clientless web design agencies out there. Even if you're good at web design, it's hard to get that signal out above the noise of so many who do it worse for less. Getting more and more people to your commecial website doesn't mean a thing unless you have something that people want to buy.

Joel (http://biroco.com/)

#11

Scrivs,

Regarding your traffic flow on CSS Vault:

I can understand where traffic increases with an update. With the site being relatively new, new content is what keeps visitors coming back.

However, I wonder if in the future, your site will not only be known for its newer content, but rather as a resource. I gather that as people begin to see the benefits of using CSS, they will look for any examples to spark their ideas. Your archives, in this sense, are golden.

Immediacy of new content is a driving force in the Internet's success, but longevity of that content is just as important.

Erin (http://www.zenhaus.net/)

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