Want More Qualified Leads? Present Less Choices.
By: Curt Conrad
President, BrightCite Inc.
Your customer is looking for something online. Your business wants to sell them something online. Improve your odds of generating quality leads by giving prospects less choices, not more. Here’s why:
Less Choice Means Better Search Engine Optimization – There are millions of websites competing for your customer’s attention. If you focus with your 80/20 compass on providing prospects with only a few key solutions, the search engines will love you because:
- Your content will have dense, focused and concentrated keywords making it more relevant to search engines. The more choices you give, the more watered down your relevance can become.
- Other websites are more likely to link to specific content rather than general. Offering less choice means you can get more specific and detailed with your content. The more links from other websites you get – the more the search engines reward you with higher ranking.
- Your long tail starts to wag. The long tail refers to the millions of searches that are looking for obscure or non-general search phrases. So instead of a general search for "truck" a longtail search would be "1984, blue truck with 20 inch tires" So by focusing on building your content on fewer choices you are in a better position to benefit from the long tail. The long tail also has high conversion rates because the searches are so specific and there is less competition for the terms.
Less Choice Makes A More Effective Website – The more options you add to your website the more confusing it becomes to the visitor. Where should they click, what does this link mean, I can’t read this, it’s too small, am I in the right place? These are all variables that play out every time a visitor lands on your webpage.
The solution. Kill the confusion. Reduce the choices. Then reduce them again. You’ll be surprised at how your web traffic and sales will increase.
Customers Want Less Choice – In his book The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz makes a compelling case that giving a prospect too many choices is the surest way to send them packing. Why? This book review from Publishers Weekly captures the essence:
“Schwartz, drawing extensively on his own work in the social sciences, shows that a bewildering array of choices floods our exhausted brains, ultimately restricting instead of freeing us. We normally assume in America that more options (‘easy fit’ or ‘relaxed fit’?) will make us happier, but Schwartz shows the opposite is true, arguing that having all these choices actually goes so far as to erode our psychological well-being.”
Bottom line – too much choice creates stress. So perhaps the question is – how much stress is your website causing your visitors, customers, employees? Should you put your website on a stress reduction program? Cutting down the number of choices you offer is a good place to start…