Nothing will drive website visitors away faster than turning a real writer loose on your website.

Here’s the problem. All good writers want people to read what they write. To do this they tell stories. They want to share. They want to explain. They long for the reader to get lost within the writer’s world.

No desire could be more destructive when it comes to your website. Get thee away from good and honest writers.

Here’s why.

Today’s website visitors want information. Statistically, they want it in 9 seconds. That’s down from the 12 seconds they allotted in 2000.

Worst thing you can do to capture that goldfish-like attention span is to have the words on your website crafted by someone in love with the craft of writing. Not when visitors are seeking quick and easy information.

Hey, I’ve spent my entire career writing. And nothing pleases me more than having readers spend as much time as possible on my words. But, I’m not foolish enough to want to place ‘em on websites where folks don’t want to be engaged with a writer. They just want information. Quickly.

So, check out your website. Chances are you’ll find:

• Organizational ego trips that get in the way of clarity.

• Obscure program descriptions and probably some legalese about ‘restricted’ vs. ‘non-restricted’ giving.

• Prettily polished nonsense and vanity about senior management.

• Very little quick, direct and informational content that the reader was searching for in the first place.

I’m proud of being a writer, but I wouldn’t touch a website assignment if my life depended on it.

Websites should inform not engage. And I’m in the craft of getting readers engaged. So please, take my advice. Hire a ‘website writer’ — not one of us regular copywriters — so you can best serve the visitors’ goal of getting the information they seek.

Anything more — as in the embroidery and story telling of good copywriting — will simply make donors and potential donors more cynical and skeptical, less loyal and less trusting.

So the next time one of your really good copywriters claims she/he can make your website sing, please fire her.

Roger

P.S. Few fundraisers understand the financial bleeding that occurs on their websites. Just because it’s ‘cheap’ and automated doesn’t make it simple or easy when it comes to basics.

Wake up, please! If folks who obsess over orange envelopes vs. blue envelopes in direct mail and all the money and time they waste on testing complexity in dm,  instead spent 1/4^th of the time and money understanding the hemorrhaging on their website, we’d have an overnight revolution — for the better.

PPS: For a terrific case study of the care, thought, and effective preparation that goes into fixing the hidden leaks in your donor acquisition and retention bucket read carefully this Agitator post on making your website a fundraising winner.