The subtitle of this post could be “how to get people to read your statement of philosophy” or “how to introduce yourself to a new user”.
Frequently, clients want to include a page on their website that both welcomes the new user into their world and also expresses their mission and philosophy in detail. They also often want this page listed first in their main navigation, which is tough from a user-focused perspective. I usually advocate putting the things first that your users are putting first, and reading a lengthy essay on how your organization views the world is almost never their primary goal when visiting your website.
But I was recently disarmed by just such a main navigation point, and it had everything to do with the language. The link said, “Hello”. As a human, my immediate impulse was to say “hello” back, and the only way I knew how to do this in the context of visiting a website was to click the link.
That transaction amazed me, not least because once I got to the page I realized it was just the usual four paragraphs of abstract corporate purpose. I had unwittingly clicked through to a mission statement!
Not to put too fine a point on it here, but the words we use in the context of applications matter (and not just for SEO). A door that says “pull” is very different than a door that says “push”. A link that says “hello” or “start here” or “read me” feels very different than a link that says “our mission” or “our philosophy” or “who we are”. Had this nav point said one of the latter, I almost certainly would not have clicked it.
But really the lesson of my amazing experience is that even if you do manage to get a user at “hello”, you aren’t guaranteed a relationship with that user until you give them something worth clicking to.