11 ways to drive traffíc away from your website
By Jerry Bader (c) 2007
Why Web-Users Are So Impatient
While watching a Toronto Raptor basketball game I saw T.J. Ford,
one of the fastest players in the league, rush down the court
like a man possessed and proceed to throw the ball behind his
back to a trailing Andrea Bargnani. The trouble was the ball
sailed over the head of the seven-foot Bargnani into the second
row of seats. Ford, himself, ended up with a beer and popcorn
facial after landing in the lap of a front row patron. So what
does this have to do with website design and marketing you ask?
A lot.
As talented as Ford is as a basketball player he sometimes plays
out-of-control, and his major asset, his speed, becomes a
liability. When this happens in a basketball game the answer is
to slow the game down and get back in control.
Don't Speed-It-Up; Slow-It-Down
Website visitors are like the speedy T.J. Ford; they are so
intent on getting what they want as quickly and efficiently as
possible, that they often surf the Internet out-of-control.
How many times have you sat in front of the computer with your
hand resting on your mouse searching for some desired product,
service, or information, when all of sudden you find what looks
like what you want, but before you even have a chance to
discover exactly what it is, your hair-trigger finger decides
it's time to move-on. It's like your finger has a mind of it's
own.
Speed Kills Marketing Efforts
All the talk and discussion about short attention spans caused
by people raised on video games and quick-cut-edited music
videos is very misleading.
What website visitors won't tolerate are websites that waste
their time, and many websites are guilty of exactly that.
Contrary to popular belief, the job of a website designer, who
understands marketing, is not to speed up website visitors, but
to slow them down so they can absorb the marketing message.
If you want your audience to remember you, if you want to make
an impression, if you want website visitors to understand why
they should give you their business, then you have to slow them
down long enough to absorb your message. And that message better
be worth their while or they will never come back.
It isn't about how fast a page loads; it's about delivering an
appropriate payoff for the wait.
Now I will admit there are people who absolutely, positively
will not wait more than eight seconds for anything to load. You
know who you are. And I say, the hell with them. These are the
same people who won't wait their turn in a brick and mortar
store either, they demand to be served before everyone else -
it's just not possible to satisfy these people, so why design
your entire website marketing around them. They are never going
to hang around long enough to grasp your message and learn why
they should be giving you their business, so forget about them.
The people you should be worrying about are the ones that really
want to find out more about what it is you do, and are prepared
to invest a little time and effort to give you a chance to
explain yourself. These are the important people; this is your
real audience, and you disappoint them at your financial peril.
The Reasons Why Web-users Are Impatient
The real reason website users are so damn impatient is not that
they have such short attention spans, it's because most websites
are designed to meet perceived company objectives, rather than
audience needs.
How To Drive Traffic Away From Your Website
Let's take a look at some of the reasons why your website
visitors may be leaving your website before they've had a chance
to hear what you have to say; or to put it another way, if you
want to drive traffic AWAY faster than you attract it, here are
some of the things you should do.
1. Give Web-visitors Too Many Options and Choices
Social scientist and Swarthmore College professor, Barry
Schwartz, has coined the phrase, "the paradox of choice." His
studies have concluded the more choice you give people, the less
likely they are to make a decision. Some choice is good, but too
much choice creates confusion: it's a case of diminishing
marginal utility.
A well designed website explains, directs, guides, and focuses
visitor attention on the things that are of real benefit to your
visitors and to your company.
Every business provides a variety of products, services, and
information to their customers, but these things are not all of
equal importance. Your website is a place to focus attention on
your core marketing message, not a place to provide a shopping
list of everything you are able to do and every product or
service you may be able to offer.
2. Give Web Visitors Too Much Information To Process
Architect, author, and information designer, Richard Saul
Wurman, in his book, 'Information Anxiety' talks about, "the
ever-widening gap between what we understand and what we think
we should understand."
Good website design is about more than technology and
aesthetics; it's about deciding what information needs to be
presented and what information needs to be left out. If you are
truly an expert in your field, you should know what information
is important to your customers in order for them to make a
decision. Too much information is like too much choice, it
confuses rather than clarifies. Focus on delivering meaningful
content or risk having your visitors hit the exit button.
3. Give Web Visitors Too Much Non-relevant Content
The only thing worse than overloading your website with more
information than visitors can absorb is confusing them with
useless and non-relevant content.
Non-relevant content is content that doesn't advance your major
purpose: to deliver your marketing message in an informative,
engaging, entertaining, and memorable manner. If it isn't
relevant, dump it.
4. Give Web Visitors Too Many Irritating Distractions
Websites should be designed to direct visitors to the
information they want and that information should be the
content you want to deliver.
You cannot sell someone a product or service they do not want. A
real prospect is one that needs the same information you want to
provide; the art of sales is directing potential clients to
relevant information, and presenting it in a way that visitors
see your product or service as fulfilling their needs.
On the surface, third-party advertisements and banners may seem
like a good way to make some extra cash from your traffic, but
these ads become so distracting, visitors either get fed-up or
click on one of the links that takes them away from your site.
Whatever few bucks you earn from these ads, you are loosing by
chasing real customers away; this of course assumes you are a
real business with something legitimate to sell and not a
website that's an excuse to deliver advertisements.
Other nonsense like favorite links and silly fluff-content
merely distracts visitors from investigating your site to find
what they are looking for.
5. Give Web Visitors Too Many Red Flags
Website visitors are constantly looking for red flags that tell
them that the site they are visiting should be skipped as soon
as possible.
If you want to make sure visitors won't deal with you make sure
you don't provide any contact information: no contact names, no
phone numbers, and no mailing address is a sure sign that you
won't look after any problems that arise from a website
transaction.
Your website must be designed to build trust and foster a
relationship, not scare people away.
6. Give Web Visitors Too Many Decisions To Make
How many decisions do you demand from your visitors in order for
them to do business with you?
Take for example the seemingly simple task of purchasing a new
television. Do you purchase the inexpensive but old tube
technology, the newer Plasma technology, or the LCD technology?
How about all the various features to choose from like
picture-in-picture, commercial skip-timers, and on and on? All
you really want to do is relax with your spouse and enjoy a good
movie - is that on a VSH, DVD, Blu-ray, or HD-DVD?
7. Give Web Visitors Too Many Stumbling Blocks
Do you make people go through the order processing system before
they can find out how much something costs, or do you demand
potential customers read a ridiculous amount of small print
legalese that only a lawyer could understand?
If you want to drive traffic away from your site make sure you
build in as many stumbling blocks as possible.
8. Give Web Visitors Too Many Forms To Fill-in
Do you attract your visitors with special offers or free white
papers and then demand that they fill-out complex forms,
surveys, and questionnaires before you give them access to what
they came for? If you do, you are probably losing a lot of
people you attracted, and you are guaranteeing that your next
email promotion will end up in the trash.
9. Give Web Visitors Incomprehensible Page Layouts
Good design, proper page layout, consistent navigation, and well
organized information architecture that promotes serendipity,
helps visitors find what they're looking for and provides a
pleasant, efficient and rewarding experience for the website
visitor.
Website designs that rely on technology, databases, and search
engine optimization rather than focused content, coherent
organization, articulate presentation, and a memorable,
rewarding experience are designs designed to chase traffic
away.
10. Give Web Visitors Too Many Confusing Instructions
One of the most frustrating experiences website visitors
encounter is confusing instructions and incoherent explanations
of how your product or service works or how to order what you
are selling.
11. Give Web Visitors Too Many Reason To Click-out
If you really are determined to fail, make sure you provide
website visitors with as many reasons as possible to leave your
site: irrelevant links to your favorite sites, links to your
suppliers because you're too cheap to put their information on
your own site, or any combination of the reasons mentioned
above, all contribute to driving traffic away from your site.
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Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design
firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit
http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and
http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com
or telephone (905) 764-1246.
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