George points us to Empathica, pointing out how clueful the copy on the home page seems to be. I was impressed by all the white space and how calm and professional the site appears.

But I have to admit, after several minutes of poking around, I’m still not certain about what they do! Something about surveys, I think.

My guess is that someone made a company-centric flowchart of what the site had to say and do, and then they were smart enough to hire a designer and copywriter to make it pretty. The mistake is that it assumes that a visitor already knows all about them.

The straightforward solution is to present a first time visitor with the simplest, most complete overview you can.  It’s okay if it’s long, as long as each paragraph builds on the one that came before, and nothing along the way scares me away or bores me. Examples. Clear testimonials with specifics. Yes, that task is straightforward but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. But it’s worth it.