Does Your Website Have These Friendly Features?
In my last post I asked “Does Your Site Frighten Readers Away?“. When you think about websites that attract or distract, what do you think of?
Imagine if your website or blog was as friendly as one of these …
Take a good look at the picture above. What do you see? Consider what the publishers have done. Can you understand how they draw us in?
I think I had a stroke of luck with the newspaper. Usually I don’t buy any newspapers, and if I did it wouldn’t have been this particular one. But this Sunday the Mail did a remarkable thing. They put Princes new album free on the cover. Imagine you walked past the news stand this Sunday, do you think you would have missed it? Think you would look closer?
In the comments and on your blogs you came up with some great ideas for what attracts and repels on websites when you visit. You took your ideas to places I had never thought of.
Here are my thoughts based on sites I visit and my analysis of what works. Let me know what you think, agree or have your own thoughts in the comments.
While you read these tips for making your site attract, think back also to the image above and your own favourite magazines, newspapers or websites:
- Photography - Shrink down the image and one element is always visible. Big, attractive, photographs. People are hard wired to be attracted to faces. They pull us in like magnets. Would you rather see a wall of text or some imagery to add colour and interest?
- Lead with benefits - At first glance the visitor needs to know what is in it for them. Everything about the magazines and newspaper above is focused on what you will get if you only buy. What benefits is your site communicating?
- Above the fold - You can see clearly where the newspaper is folded. What is visible? How do they communicate? The fold on a computer screen is the part where you would have to scroll to see any more. What do you have on your site before the visitor has to scroll?
- Compelling headlines - On the magazine covers you have the hero story then you have a bunch of other enticing reads. Do you find yourself reading the cover and wondering what the stories are about too? What headlines do you provide visitors? Are they compelling or confusing?
- Content first, advertising second - No adverts on the covers. Look inside and the content is given priority. The way it should be.
- Phrasing - Check out the wording. No PHD words here. No lazy words either. Active, interesting, vibrant, key words that jump out, lively and visual phrasing. Short lines. Is your site like popping a sleeping pill or like gobbling a bag of chocolate covered coffee beans?
Scientists say you have just seconds to catch a visitors interest. You know yourself how distracted or interested we can be. What catches your eye? Consider for a moment your own site or blog, do you draw visitors in, help them and welcome them? Or do you expect a reader to “make the effort”?
I know I have some work to do. What changes could you make?
Tags: marketing, website, usability, blogging, design, tips, advice
Table of contents for Does your site frighten readers?
- Does Your Site Frighten Readers Away?
- Does Your Website Have These Friendly Features?
Posted on July 16th, 2007 by Chris Garrett in Marketing
Oh Gold Chris, you don’t read the Daily Mail do you? I’m amazed we haven’t had a rant about immigrants yet.
No but a free CD from the purple one makes it worth it
Did the newsagent wrap the Daily Mail in a brown paper bag for you?
It was delivered by my Mum
Great post. I’m curious - did you actually get the free CD with no strings?
Yup, bargain!
Design matters. That’s a big part of what you get with a newspaper: design. (I know because my wife works at one and is actively involved in layout, headline writing, etc.)
Blog design matters. And design doesn’t just mean “pretty pictures”, it’s the entire layout, aesthetic, structure of the blog.
For me, I need to clean mine up and reduce the header height to get more content/meat above the fold. And I need a snazzier header.
One thing that’s tricky on a blog is the “above the fold” thing. Everyone has a different screen resolution, so even if you optimize your posts/articles for the resolution that is used by the greatest number of visitors, there is still the possibility that some people aren’t going see certain elements that others will–especially if you have readers who still use 800 x 600 resolution.
I suppose you could always work on the assumption that people are viewing with 800 x 600 resolutions, and then that wouldn’t be an issue.
Having said that, this is a great piece, Chris. I completely agree.
Hey Chris;
Great post!
Although we cannot give readers free CDs, we can give them:
- ebooks
- white papers
- reports
Mike
Think different. Think user experience. Think design.
Great post! Love the Authority Blogging forums too, what a resource! Its Yahoo Answers for the bloggosphere. Community and the wisdom of crowds in action.
@Ben - Yeah, and papers have had a lot of time to perfect the art
@Adam - For me and my new design it will be about prioritising from most to least important, making sure the most important stuff is visible at 800x
@Michael - Exactly, and it does work very well
@Nathan - Thanks, tell your friends!
Chris, that is one rocking paper there. I don’t normally read the paper, but with cool freebies like that, I’d even bother to subscribe.
Great post! We forget sometimes about all the things that attract *our* attention, and forget to use them to attract others.
Are you going to tell us how this applies to the four blogs you suggested we review?
@Alexandra - I think we get too close to our own blogs and tend to not really see them how they are?
@lucia - I was going to leave that to your imagination but I could follow it up if people think that would be useful?
I guess I just want to read how your specific evaluations compare to mine.
I used to blog only about knitting. Moving into this area, I see distinct differences between blogs in the “blog-about-blogging” niche and I’d like to read much more specific opinions about what is good or bad rather than just leaving it to my imagination.
I’ve posted screen shots of three of these blogs and I plan to comment on yours tomorrow.
I’m also tempted to show photos of the newspapers I buy at my blog. They don’t look anything like the newspapers you posted!
Heh if I did buy newspapers usually it wouldn’t be that particular one. It was only my desire to hear the CD that attracted me
More to the point, not only don’t I buy those newspapers, when a newspaper looks like the one with Prince on the cover, I generally just flat out won’t buy it!
I’d change my mind if it contained a free cd I wanted. Afterwards, I’d throw the paper in the recycling bin or give it to my hairdresser so women can browse it while having their perms set.)
I subscribe to the Chicago Tribune and The Wall Street Journal. Their front pages say “this is a newspaper”. They do share some of the elements you describe, but no one buys the Wall Street Journal for a free insert.
So you are saying
1. You would pick up a paper if it had a free insert that appealed to you
2. Some people subscribe to papers so buy them before they know what they contain or regardless of their content
3. Certain papers have different ways of appealing to their audience
I think we can all agree with those points and they all apply to blogs
Chris,
First, I agree with much of what you said in your article. Also, your bullets capture part of what I’m saying. But we are discussing whether or not the cover draws people in.
I think those covers draw some people in and repel others.
The covers you happen to have selected specifically resemble The National Enquirer (or the Daily Mail). I generally won’t give the paper a second glance.
The only reason I would glance twice at those magazines is that they are consistently stocked in bins by the grocery store line where I often wait 5 minutes for the checker. Yes, I would buy one if I discovered they represented a great value. But normally, I wouldn’t notice the banner and wouldn’t buy.
So, if we translate this to the web where I am not forced to look at the cover, that design might induce the “immediate back-button reaction”. I would be gone before I noticed any free offer.
The reason for the “back-button reaction” is that in my experience, magazines (or blogs) that look like that contain content that is similar to The National Enquirer, and lets face it, that magazine does not generally contain Prince CD’s!
Many of the things you say in your article are correct. But you also highlight the importance of faces drawing people in. Sure, they do. I think you also fail to highlight the importance of having a cover that matches your content.
If we take a broader lesson from magazines, we’d realize that the cover photography or images must also “match” the content. Face shots and pictures of gyrating rock stars are not be uniquely suited to drawing in readers. sometimes they just don’t suit a publication and using them would repel readers.
Lots magazines draw people in with other sorts of pictures. Consumer Reports generally shows products including “sexy” dishwashers and refrigerators. Money Magazine show things associated with money; stacks of dollar bills are not uncommon. Car and Driver shows cars. Garden magazines show flower gardens and vegetables. Home decorating and home improvement magazines show homes and decor. Loads of women’s magazines show cakes, cookies, crafts and nice table settings on the cover.
These magazines have covers that match their contents. They also sell well in grocery store lines in my part of the country. Replacing the photos of yummy brownies on a homemaking magazines with a woman’s face would not improve sales.
Some good tips that we could all use. I was interested in how you used the same as a newspaper as for a blog/ web design.
I think sometimes, we can get a bit too different and ignore the basic rules.