As a kid I remember spending endless hours in the summer playing board games in the barn or the maple grove with the neighborhood kids. Now, my daughter who owns a babysitting service is doing the same. I stopped in for a game of checkers and to do a brain dump! Or so I thought.

For those of you not familiar, the object of the game is to capture all of the opponent's men, or block them so they cannot be moved. My strategy begins by being aggressive and getting a king first. This means being the first to lose some men, which gives your opponent a false sense of power, but it gets your opponent's men out of the way so can blaze a path to making a king.

Your need a strategy for your website's success too. But the big question is: what is the object of your game? The object may be to get clients and/or sales. But do your visitors know how to play your game? Is it clear to your visitor what they are to do?

Fortunately the rules of checkers are very obvious and simple that's why ages 5 and up can play. If only everyone's website was this easy!

Start out with this simple and effective objective--that to me--is worth zillions.

The First thing a visitor should notice is your golden banana. A golden banana = a king in checkers. Your website should have an opt-in for a free report, mini-course, teleclass, workbook, SOMETHING of incredible VALUE your visitor will happily give you their name and email address for on impulse and without thinking. Remember, the visitor is looking for information and they found YOU - if your opt-ins copy is well written and compelling enough, they're yours.

Many folks get greedy and put all kinds of junk on their homepage. They think they're doing their visitors a favor by giving them choices, BUT statistics prove over and over again - too many choices = NO CHOICE. Make it simple. Don't make me think. Give me one choice. Give me the GOLDEN BANANA!

The reason I call this the Golden Banana is because getting your prospect's info allows you to market to them forever. And marketing forever really is like (cha-ching) BARS OF GOLD to your bank account or an army of kings in checkers.

So what if they don't commit or purchase right away - you have their contact info. Statistics say it takes an average of 7 contacts before a customer makes a purchase.

Your best marketing strategy in the internet age is "educational marketing". Teach, show, share and educate your target audience.

Having their contact info is just like that king in checkers, you have the power to move any way you want.

Copyright 2006 TheWebCoach.net