Does Your Website Content Have Too Much Hype

As an internet marketer, you have to use certain techniques to drive traffic and clinch sales. Of course you are going to talk up your products or services – after all you are trying to convince visitors that they need to make a purchase. But if you use too much hype in your website content, it could result in some very negative consequences.

So What’s All The Hype About Hype?

Urban Dictionary provides several definitions for the word hype but this one is most applicable to internet marketing: “to intensify (advertising, promotion, or publicity) by ingenious or questionable claims, methods, etc.”

Certainly we’ve all visited websites where the hype is overwhelming. The text is large, flashy, colourful, and in bold, stating such things as “the best widget ever made!” or “guaranteed to make you a millionaire overnight!”

Obviously these are questionable claims – not only questionable, but downright unbelievable. If you can’t trust the site’s claims, how could you possibly trust anything else such as the guarantee of satisfaction, the quality of the offerings, or the integrity of the business owner?

Too much hype is a sure sign of a scam website and an e-commerce company that can’t be trusted.

Does Your Website Content Have Too Much Hype?

Take a good long look at your website content. Are you using any of the methods described above to convince customers they can’t live without your products or services? If you cannot substantiate any of the claims, then you need to rephrase the text or simply delete it from the page.

Does your copy overuse adjectives like “best”, “most”, “greatest”? Sure sounds like hype. Is there anything on your pages that is exaggerated or simply untrue? More signs of hype.

Best Practices

Your website content needs to be honest about the products or services offered. This is the number one best practice to always incorporate in every page. Don’t promise anything you cannot deliver.

Rather than saying you sell the best widget ever made, consider it rewording it to something along the lines of “This widget is rigorously tested for safety and quality standards by the International Widget Association”. When possible, include the name of an authority that lends credence to the claim.

Use customer testimonials. Visitors are much more likely to believe the testimony of an ‘average Joe’ customer over the manufacturer’s claims. If you can get permission from someone famous who has actually used the product to post favourable comments, that’s even better.

Be honest about what the product will and will not do. If you are selling a small shovel made out of cheap aluminium, don’t hype it up to be the best tool for moving mounds of rock-strewn dirt. However, if it does a great job on cleaning ashes out of the fireplace, do include that information.

Offer a money back guarantee of satisfaction and back it up. Inspire trust in your customers by letting them know how long you have been in business and giving them various ways to contact you, i.e. postal service, email, telephone, etc.

To most internet-savvy visitors, hype = spam. Don’t make the mistake of including obviously untrue hype in your website content to gain sales. In the long run, this methodology will always fail.