Drive-by-Shooting Sundays: Positioning Strategy

“Want a peek?” James watched the victim a few seconds more, tracking him steadily as he walked through the park before handing the binoculars to Harry.

“I’d like to see something for sure,” Harry muttered. Their position wasn’t the best. It was hard to spot the man in the suit, and he’d been squinting for what felt like hours. “Do glasses count as a business expense?”

Now it was James turn to squint. “Dunno. I’m sure I can find a way to write them off if they aren’t. There he is,” he tugged Harry’s sleeve and pointed. “See him?”

“Now I do.” The binoculars helped. If he had a magnifying glass, it might have been even better. “Okay… he’s heading the right way. Let’s go.”

The two men strode down the path to the park, walking fast but not running. No need to run today, not like last week’s hit where they’d been chased by the angry hotel owner until they’d managed to shake him off by joining a crowded street festival.

No, today it was a simple hit. A quiet afternoon, an empty park, and one business executive in a suit who was completely oblivious to the two men striding to catch up to him.

Today’s hit is for Positioning Strategy, the blog of Linas Simonis. Here’s what the site looked like when we drove by:

The executive stopped near a park bench where a woman fed the birds, and the two men slowed to a casual walk, pretending they were just enjoying the day. This wasn’t the time to look obvious.

“He looks dangerous,” James said quietly, trying to look interested in a tree. “Be ready for a struggle.”

Dangerous is the thought that comes to mind when we first see the site. The bright red banner at the top is aggressive. That’s only highlighted by the red of the headlines. There is no particular imaging to attract the eye and make it appealing, and it comes off screaming.

We highly suggest switching out that banner to something more welcoming that isn’t so aggressive and “in your face”. It can still have some red, but it really should be softened up and made to be inviting, not shouting.

“Don’t worry, we won’t get close enough for him to touch us,” Harry mentioned, stopping to pull out the business card they’d been given by headquarters. “Besides, he’s in Marketing, not Military. We’re safe.”

The card didn’t tell him much about who this man was, and he flipped it over. “Hm. A strategist,” Harry showed James. “Like I said,” he tucked the card away again, “He’s no match for us.”

The tagline sure isn’t a match to be worried about – it just isn’t effective enough. For one, putting a personal name in a tagline isn’t a good idea, and two, the tagline doesn’t tell people enough about the site. What’s in it for them? Why are they here? Why are there grammar mistakes?

“Strategies to Help you Win the Marketing Battle in a Web 2.0 Age” is a much better tagline in general. It tells people what they’ll get here and what the site is about. However, it would also be good to mention what kind of strategies (strategies in itself is vague) and why the web 2.0 age is a hard one to win.

“Where’d he go?” A moment’s distraction and they’d lost the exec. He’d moved on from the bench. “This is a weird park.” James scratched his head, trying to figure out which way they should go. This way to the lake? That way to… to what exactly? And where did this trail go? There were no signs. “Do we have a layout of this place?”

“Nope.” Harry was just as lost. A map would’ve been good – damned good. But there was none to be had.

There’s no navigation to be had on the site, either. We don’t know how to travel around or get off this main page. It’s hard to see where to go, the links to other pages are too small and hidden, and there’s no easy path to help move people through your site.

Add a navigation bar below the banner, even if it’s just a basic one with Ebooks, Services, Hire Me, Archives, About and Contact. It’s important to help guide visitors around your site and not make them guess where to go. Right now there’s no reason for visitors to delve deeper into the site. It just sits there while the eyes go all over the place.

The site comes off as a big block of text, too, and that isn’t helping guide people either. It’s good that people are attracted to the copy, but if they don’t know where they are or why they should read, they’re jumping into the reading cold, with no idea why they should be reading in the first place.

“Where now?” The two boys had wandered around some more, entering an area of the park where there were so many trees, benches and paths that they almost wanted to turn around and leave.

“Beats me.” Harry shrugged, wondering if this was the victim who’d get away. He was at a loss. The park was getting cluttered, like a forest, and it almost seemed to make sense to ditch the place and go after the victim another day.

A forest of clutter is what the sidebars remind us of – and it’s turning us off. It’ll turn off visitors too. There’s a LOT of text in the sidebars, which isn’t helping. The site needs something to break up that busy look and give it a cleaner, more organized feeling.

Start by ditching all the tiny text. Increase the size of the sidebar header fonts so that they’re not so small and give people guidance.

Then organize. Move the About Me, Email Me and Hire Me out of your sidebar. Put that in a main navigation bar where it belongs.

Cut down the number of Recent Posts to five – there are way too many links going on and that amount of text and links isn’t necessary. It gives option paralysis. Too much to choose from, and people choose nothing at all.

“There he is!” Harry hissed the whisper, grabbing James and pulling him behind a tree so they weren’t spotted. “Did he see us?”

James risked a slow peek around. “No… ” He watched the businessman a bit more, and then drew back with a shudder. “He’s a little bit scary, you know. I mean, he looks nice enough, but… I dunno. Creepy,” he took another glance.

We definitely suggest a better picture, a face shot and a smaller size of photo. The picture is okay, but the positioning of the lowered chin, the knowing smile and the looking up at the camera gives it a bit of a creepy Halloween feel. Come closer, my pretty… WHACK!

Moving right along…

In the right-hand sidebar, the ad for the book needs to be changed. It’s too hard to read, the text is too small and with the red and white going on, it just blends into the site. There’s no encouraging text to compel readers to click through, either. We suggest creating a new ad and coming up with a great tagline to get people clicking through.

“Gimme the binoculars again,” James held out his hand to Harry. “I think I need glasses too. I can’t see… Ah, okay, now I see it… there’s something written there too. A clue?”

The RSS button in the subscription box gets lost, as it’s too small. Also, why the “Please read before subscribing?” Get rid of that. It’s just one extra click that can deter people from signing up.

The social bookmark icons below are nearly invisible. There are only three, which is great, but they’re so small and the text has become tiny. Increase the font size, increase the icon size, and get some snappy text to encourage people to take action!

Books for CEOs… Well, what about the rest of people? Not everyone is a CEO, and while that may be your target market, the rest of the site doesn’t indicate that only CEOs should be reading here. Re-title that to include all types of people and don’t exclude people from your audience. How about “Books for Business”?

Size. Again. The book images are so small we can’t see what they are, and the text is too small too. By this point, we’re tired of straining to read, so we’ve given up. So will readers, unfortunately, and the click throughs will be low. There are also too many books – three is plenty, or feature one with a little bit of a review text and a link to read more. Tell people why these books are good!

There’s a Blogs for CEOs section, and again, we’re wondering why other people are excluded. Why not just “Blogs for Business”?

Your About page needs some work. Writing in the third person on a blog where you’re speaking in the first person comes off as inconsistent and a little odd to read. Use “I” and talk about “you” instead of “he”.

The contact form shouldn’t be below all that text on the About page, either. Give a contact form its own page and make it highly visible to visitors. Also give the text that highlights your services its own page as well.

Overall, what’s hurting the site is the mass of white, the lack of guidance and sidebar clutter, and the aggressive red coloring. Increase font sizes, make text easy to read, cut down on long lists and give the site a more appealing, welcoming look. It’ll help to invite readers in versus driving them away.

“That’s it.” It was time to stop all this squinting. Harry was getting a headache from the eyestrain. They had seen enough. Now was the moment to take the shot and be done with it. They couldn’t risk the executive slipping into the trees again.

The executive kept walking along, totally unaware of his fate. Harry almost laughed to himself as he loaded and aimed. “Like a sitting duck,” he whispered.

The shot rang out and a flock of pigeons scattered, taking to the skies in a burst of feathers and panic. The small figure in the distance crumpled. “That’s that.” Harry holstered the pistol and started walking away. He never messed around like James did.

James caught up and fell in step alongside him. “Nice shot. Clean, no trail for anyone to follow, and no one to notice.”

“That’s how it should be.” Harry glanced at the sun and rubbed his stomach. “I’m hungry. You know what I’m in the mood for?”

“No. What?”

“Sushi. C’mon, I know a great little place not far from here…”

Want more? You got it. Check out the lineup of upcoming hit jobs:

November 9 – Sushi Day
November 16 – The D Spot Redux
November 23 – The Antisocial Social Worker
November 30 – Writer Dad
December 7 – Deaf Mom World
December 14 – Linkers Blog

Note: We’ve closed requests for free drive-bys and will start taking names again in December for January’s hits. Thanks everyone!

Want your blog shot down? Hit us up for a professional private drive-by via email. It’s only $30, and you’ll get your shoot-out within a week. Come on. You know you wanna.

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