One way to succeed in your online business is to learn from others who have been there and done that. What kind of homepage design gets the best results? What colors and images does your target audience respond best to? Archive.org’s WayBack Machine a great way to learn from your successful competitors who have been at the game for a while.

Just type in a URL and see how various websites have changed over the years. Let’s take a peek at MSN’s past…

1996 – LOVE the text under the cloud image that reads: “oh… and if you are new to the Internet…click here for our internet tutorial”(<< This is what’s so great about the WayBack Machine – this link will really take you to this internet tutorial frozen in time from 1996!)

2000 – Data between 1996 and 2000 is scrambled, but by the year 2000, you can see that MSN has moved full swing into the search game. The design stayed relatively similar for the next several year. These were the days when Microsoft dominated search…

2002 – A color scheme change and now displaying current stock prices (with a 20 minute delay) on the homepage.

2003 – A slight color variation, but otherwise the design has remained pretty consistent.

2006 – Pretty much holding steady with the design with slight variations

2007 – MSN Today

Who do you want to check out?

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Have you ever wondered how phenomenally fantastic most of online companies are: #1!, leading!, premiere!, fastest!, greatest!, smartest!, most dynamic!… simply the best :). Are you one of those companies? Or is this a mega trend that promotes self-centered approach and exaggeration? No matter how you call it, it’s about to extinct.

Today’s customers demand greater transparency and authenticity. It’s the new standard you have to live with. They want to know how your business can bring them satisfaction in one or another way.

Web users got bored with dubious words of praise. They seek the REAL deal. “What is in it for me?” they ask. Pronouns such as “I,” “we,” “our,”  and your company name  as well as  customer-focused words such as “you” and “your” are key indicators of your focus.

There’s a handy free online analysis tool which tells how customer centered your web copy is. It’s called We-We Calculator developed by Futurenowinc.

You simply type in the url of your website. The tool calculates the instances of customer centered  and self-centered words. Then It gives you the percentage including  original length of Page (including all HTML) , content length after stripping HTML, and a total word count. It is nothing more than a handy, but rough guide that will help you focus on something important. There are lots of variables and also remember there are no shortcuts to writing great copy.

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