2. Proposition

A proposition is prospect-centered. It is all about them. Either it states their current situation, and 'ain't it awful', or it reveals a dream they have about what their life could become: 'If only...'

Go back to roots of product or service you are offering. Why does it exist in today's world, and what good does it do for people? Ask yourself why you are involved with it. Be idealistic. The proposition section of your home page sets up a kind of vacuum, which you are about to fill with...

3. Benefits

A benefit is anything that will make your customer's life better by using your product or service. This is payoff, and crucial section of your home page where you must deliver goods. Take a good look at what you are promoting, and then...

Write down each and every benefit you can, with no thought about which is most important. You'll order them later. Write down everything that can possibly do your customer some good. Everything.

After finishing this 'brain dump', go back and prioritize. Don't prioritize as you go, because that will inhibit you. List first, order second. When writing your home page, companion pages, and sales letter, begin with benefit one, then two, three and so on down to least significant.

&...

The MUST-HAVE Button: Your Benefit-Rich Sales Letter

The one button you absolutely must link to from your home page is your benefit-rich sales letter.

A good home page is already a clear call to action. But it also can't go on for too long or you will put visitors off. The analogy of your home page as an interesting magazine index is a good one. You should offer enough provocative information that any visitor absolutely must go deeper into your site. They just can't hold themselves back.

Remember, it is benefit-rich sales letter that always closes sale.

So do keep in mind that by using outside services to perform these functions (especially free ones), you are (a) increasing chances that your visitors will go elsewhere, (b) slowing down your website, and (c) reducing your customization capabilities.

The ideal solution is to load your site on a host which allows server-side scripting. These can include CGI (Perl, TCL, and languages such as Visual Basic and C++) and more involved solutions such as ASP, PHP and SSI. The difference between these is that CGI is creation of an external program which is invoked by your web pages, while ASP, PHP and SSI involved adding scripts directly to your web pages. You can also use client-side options such as Java applets, JavaScript and VBscript.

Just because you want to use CGI does not mean that you need to learn how to write your own scripts. There are plenty of scripts that have been written by others which work perfectly well. Many of these are very customizable and work very, very well. Just be careful to get your scripts from a reputable source. I usually start from cgi-resources, which has a very comprehensive selection of all types of solutions. Note that many scripts are free for private use ... sometimes free scripts may impose a fee for commercial use.

So in conclusion, you can add interactive features to your web site using outside, remotely hosted services or you can host scripts yourself. You also have choice of writing your own scripts or obtaining them from a script library. In any event, all of these features will give your visitors a way to interact, thus increasing chances that they will recommend your site and return themselves.