I’m working on a magazine article that requires me to talk to independently owned retail stores that have been in business over 10 years—and I’ve been amazed by how many of them still have pages that say “coming soon!”
It’s clear that if they’ve survived this long as a business they’d never consider roping off a section of empty racks in the store or in the window display and leaving a “coming soon” sign up for months at a time—yet that’s exactly what many of them do online.
Chances are if you’ve dedicated a page on your website to a specific type of content that customers are going to come looking for that content. Very few, if any of them, will come back twice. Instead, if they can’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll go look for it somewhere else. That means its important to fill those “coming soon” pages with content—at least the basic idea of what you’d like to be there—as soon as possible. You can always go back and fill in more detail or additional information in the future, but make sure your customers absolute most pressing questions will be answered on their first visit to your site.
After all, you wouldn’t want your manufacturer to say a product was “coming soon” and then take months (or longer) to fill an order, would you?
If you’re guilty of keeping a “coming soon” sign up a little to long, get in touch and we’ll figure out how to get some content there next month—I’ve already started booking for January, but I have a few slots left open!
[Photo Credit: Daquella manera]
