Don’t Make Them Think
You’ve got about 3 seconds to capture your prospect’s attention. That’s it.
In that time they have to work out what your site is about and what’s in it for them. The more complicated your message the more difficult it is for them to work it out - and the easier it is for them to hit the back button.
A few tips:
- Design each page to have one main objective. Make it big, make it bold.
- Keep your navigation labels (Services, Contact Us etc) simple and self explanatory. This is probably a little outdated these days (well I hope so) but don’t use obscure images in place of text. We call that mystery meat navigation.
- Make it easy for your prospects by making sure clickable links look like clickable links. Online, an underlined word signifies a link. If it’s not a link don’t underline it.
There’s enough competition out there without putting your prospects off before they’ve had a chance to become your customer.
September 22nd, 2006 at 1:30 pm
hi there…loved your post. Actually, the latest report I read (can’t remember the source) said that what used to be 3 seconds is now about 1 second. I wrote a similar article about this here…
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/56580/practical_tips_for_converting_visitors.html
September 25th, 2006 at 7:48 am
Thanks Michael.
I think the source for 1 second was Christine Perfetti from the UIE blog. She made a post about that here: http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2006/01/18/snap-decisions-on-the-web/
October 2nd, 2006 at 8:42 am
thanks Sophie. Yes, you were right. And I assume as web users become more savvier that 1 second will continue to decrease….
October 2nd, 2006 at 9:01 am
I suspect you’re right Michael. It certainly makes it more of a challenge to capture one’s attention fast.