By Matt Pigott & Alex Waite

You work hard at driving traffic to your website. So how can you ensure yours will be the final destination – not just another wrong turn for potential franchisees and customers?

In an age of instant access and multimedia platforms, the attention span of the average person surfing the net is shrinking at a rate parallel to newspaper copy sales. And when a potential franchisee lands on your website, the average time spent deciding whether to stay or go will be just ten seconds.

The virtual twists and turns that bring a prospect to your website can begin anywhere – most notably search engines but also through hyperlinks, click-through ads, printed ads, public relations or word of mouth, to give just a few examples. But by whatever route your prospects arrive at your site, the most important thing is that when they get there they stay a while.

The first question you should ask is: what does a potential franchisee need to see once they get to your website? Well, it’s straight on to the most important thing – the editorial content. If you give them what they want they’ll stick around, give them what they don’t want and they’ll leave, so this is the place that the ten-second rule really applies.

The ten-second rule is all about grabbing the reader’s attention before they have a chance to navigate away from your site, and possibly onto one of your competitor’s. In real terms we’re talking around 20 of the punchiest words and most relevant information to excite your prospects enough to carry on reading.

Remember, what goes on the page is what your prospect sees. And what your prospect sees is representative of you, your brand and the people behind it. So don’t just count every word…make every word count. Remember you have just ten seconds to comply!

For more than ten seconds of free advice on how you can improve your editorial content and keep prospects looking at your website, email franchising@mp-pr.co.uk