Articles on Website Design and Development.
Lights...camera...ACTION!
Your website is NOT a billboard. The ONLY similarity between the two is that they both have roughly 6 seconds to deliver their message.
Your website is a live one-on-one, eye-to-eye, personal presentation; artfully crafted to deliver your unique message using a multitude of sensory stimulating tools that motivate your audience to take action here and now.
Factoid:
When faced with a choice to read a large paragraph or watch a video, the overwhelming majority will watch the video.
Because on so many levels its easier. The ear can listen at a far faster pace than most people read, the visual presentation simultaneously reenforces the message, and voice inflexion helps put emphasis on wording that reading simply does not.
A National Reading Panel (2004)
You are a Producer...and...it's 'show time'...
Most people are just not ready to effectively take on the task from the get-go because the perspective they've cultivated toward marketing is one-dimensional. They're thinking billboard, printed page, or flyer when they really should be thinking emotion.
On the web, you have the HUGE advantage of being interactive! You have lights, action, sound...VIDEO, motion, and emotion to work with as your toolsets and unless those advantages are exploited to your advantage, ...well... you've left opportunity on the table, and no one wants that.
Am i advocating glitz and glamour everywhere? of course not. But it certainly is to your advantage to seek out those familiar with internet marketing technologies to help plant the idea seeeds as you approach how best to deliver your important message to your audience.
Allow me to suggest...video. Pound for pound its killer effective.