DRTV Derailer #6: Too Many Distractions

DRTV Derailers is a monthly series on Internet-age issues that can turn a promising DRTV campaign into a train wreck.

There is a great temptation to put as much information on your website as possible and include links to all kinds of resources. Remember: Every single link you include increases the chance that consumers will be distracted from buying.

We touched on this earlier in Part 1, but we feel that because this is such an important area, we’ll go into much greater detail here. Today, while this topic is fresh in your mind, take a good look at your site. Make a list of all clickable links, which includes links to pages within your site as well as external links. We’ve observed that many DRTV product sites include these kinds of links:

• About company
• Message boards
• Product detail
• Newsletters
• Live chat
• My account
• Terms of use
• Warranty/Guarantee
• Product use instructions
• Offer details
• Site map
• Customer service
• FAQs
• Social networking logos/links
• Testimonials
• Before/After video/photographs
• Press & Reviews
• Blog
• Register product
• Membership club information
• Parts & Accessories

We’ve underlined the links that we think — in most cases — are necessary for conversion success. All the others can be explained in graphics and copy on the main landing page or don’t belong on a site designed to sell.

Bridge Over Disaster

This is an easy issue to resolve. Prepare to cut out all links that don’t directly aid the conversion process.

If you do a great job designing the landing page and a few other pages on the site, you won’t need these extraneous links that do not aid the sales process and only serve to distract potential customers.

You can ask your IT people to provide you with a report of the pages that are visited on your current site. Knowing where people go on your site will give you clues as to which pages are important and which are not.