Winning In Tough Economic Environments – Part 3 Remove Distraction
August 7, 2011
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Winning In Tough Economic Environments – Part 3 Remove Distraction
Very early on in my website marketing career I began to notice things on many websites that I did not think were very good ideas. I was determined to find out whether my gut instincts were correct or not. I knew this would involve eye tracking studies. I needed to understand how our eyes react to websites and how this affects their ability to convert visitors to customers.
I was not satisfied just to increase traffic through the SEO process. My goal has always been to improve the conversions from visitor to customer. This is the true measure of a successful website and something that is not part of search engine optimization. I basically set out to prove my theories and to provide a better service for our customers. We would later call this approach Holistic SEO, because we were focusing on the big picture and not merely on increased traffic.
About that time I discovered Stompernet, while there I watched a video on eye tracking. Unfortunately, I could not locate that video on their site when I did research for this post. What it revealed is that your eyes bounce around a web page hundreds if not thousands of times while you are visiting any website. However, you are not generally aware of this process.
There is one good example of how this works and that you have likely experienced. Many free email providers pay for their services by presenting ads that are plastered around the body of the email. Often these are animated videos with moving avatars and such. They are designed this way to get your attention and they do, often in a very irritating fashion.
I have used this example when conversing at business mixers to make my point about removing distractions. I will list some elements that might be hindering your website. These are some of the recommendations that we produce when we are presenting a clients website review.
Remove as many of these distractions as possible
You must remove any and all movement – Your web page should be a static presentation, if you want your readers to be able to focus on your message. Dull and some what boring pages will actually convert better if they include a quality sale presentation.
There are some really cool features that use a coding method known as Ajax. This allows your site to present a moving banner across your pages. It looks really cool. But this movement will cause your visitors eyes to want to focus on the movement rather than on the text being presented. Do you want your website to be cool or effective?
Go easy with images – Many website designers fall back on images to carry a web page. They do this for a multitude of reasons. Often it is due to lack of content so they compensate by including images. It is a common mistake to let your images do the selling rather than building a well thought out sales presentation.
Another drawback is that images can make your pages so slow to load that your site may be abandoned before the images ever load. This certainly is not a good thing. Also if you want to use images they should be large enough to be clearly visible. You will want to avoid thumbnail images. Remember, text in images can not be read by the search engines.
There is only one time that we would recommend using an image. It is when it represents a product or service that is being presented on that page. We often build B2B sites that only include the header image and product images. Everything else focuses on making the sale.
We recommend avoiding the use of videos on the home page. It is distracting to be reading content that is divided by a video box.
Some other common distractions that are frequently used on web pages
Keep the use of multiple fonts to a minimum - Also stick with the same format from page to page. Don’t use a three column approach on the home page and then switch to a two column look on other pages. Consistency must be maintained from page to page this speaks volumes about your business ethic. A lot of selling on a website occurs on a subconscious level.
Avoid using excessive background colors to empathize your content - The standard recommendation is to use bright colors. This often is distracting and can make the content harder to read. You should consider using black text over a white background. This will make your website easier for most to read. Strongly consider color schemes that are subtle. Many individuals are sight challenged. So keep them in mind, if they can’t read your text they will leave. This is a common an user experience. This reminds me of a site that I visited. The target market was sight challenged seniors. The site used bright yellow text over a bright red background. It was extremely difficult to read. I abandoned the site due to eye strain.
Never, I mean Never… Use the color bright red. This an emergency color. It represents problems or stop on a sub-conscious level. These things really do make a big difference. Much of what I have mentioned goes against what you may have read from other marketers. The graphic design crowd believes in the use of heavy images and colors that pop. These are designed to catch people’s attention and should be used in outdoor advertising. However, when someone lands at your website you have already accomplished the “getting their attention.” You want to keep that attention by providing the information that was being sought. When someone visits your B2B site they are not generally looking for a wow factor. They have a want, need or desire to be filled.
Is your website meeting the needs, wants , and desires of your visitors?
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Comments
One Response to “Winning In Tough Economic Environments – Part 3 Remove Distraction”
In today�s economy, companies face the challenge of reaching out on a global scale within a short period of time with consideration of monetary values. Great! A website gives you enough and more ideas of how to win in tough economic times.