Beware of website clutter!

Just as homeowners hoping to sell need to de-clutter their homes, professionals hoping to attract new clients should de-clutter their websites.

Some months ago I read that visitors are turned off by “sliders.” I agree – trying to read a header that keeps changing is an annoyance. Those are just clutter.

Today I ran across a different kind of clutter – in an offer to chat.

I have an aversion to those chat features anyway.  Every time I’ve tried using one all I got were canned, pre-scripted answers to my questions. There was no real person there. On top of that, it took a long, long time to see their reply.

But that’s OK – if marketers want to have a chat function and if it works for them, more power to them.

But it shouldn’t get in the way of reading the content on the page.

Today an agent contacted me with an idea for a new prospecting letter set. She was interested in appealing to bankruptcy attorneys for referrals to their clients who wanted/needed to sell their homes.

This is a topic I hadn’t thought about, so I decided to do a little research. Google pointed me to a page which may have had good information, but I’ll never know.

On the left side of the page there was a bubble with the word “Chat” inside. It covered up much of the copy on that side. Then a big “Chat” box popped up in the middle. I could push it down, but NOT far enough to hit the “no thanks” link before it slid back where to I couldn't see it. After trying several times, I accidentally hit the OK link.

When it started to load I closed it, thinking “That’s what I should have done in the first place.” But no, that wasn’t entirely effective either. Now instead of a big chat box in the middle, it had a smaller one on the right side of the page – where it effectively hid the copy.

I could read the middle of each line… as if that helped without the beginning and end of each line.

You know my next move – I was “Outa there!”

So be careful. If you have any kind of a pop-up or slide-in box on your site, make sure people can get rid of it at will – and that it doesn’t come back to cover up the words you want them to read.

 Image courtesy of Bill Longshaw at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

marte@copybymarte.com
www.copybymarte.com

Priest River, Idaho
208-448-1479

 

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