There are two schools of thought when it comes to designing websites with the ultimate goal of engaging users with your site.
There is the web developer or engineer’s version who know everything they want when browsing the web, and they know exactly how to go about designing it to be that way. See, this school of thought comes from the smart people who believe that if you present a visitor to your site with all the facts and data, they will find all the information they need and be able to make an informed decision (to hopefully do business with you).
Then, there is the other side of the coin: the marketer’s version. When it comes to web design, this group argues that people are too busy, impatient, and misinformed – so much so that they want to click on something right away. If you don’t give a prospect the right thing to click on right away, the end result will be hitting the back button and leaving to search for that right thing.
The marketer’s version is the one that stands behind all the data and ultimately successful results, which makes it the correct school of thought.
The best way to think about this is to picture a mouse (or the user) in a maze (or your website). Now, it’s your job to direct the mouse to the end of the maze, meaning it’s your responsibility to attract the visitor to stay on the site and then educate him or her with the hope they will be informed and choose to do business with your company.
So how do you get the mouse to the light at the end of the tunnel? The best way to motivate mice, as everyone knows, is to use cheese.
When a mouse comes across a new environment in the maze, all it wants to know is, “Where’s my cheese?” If the cheese isn’t obvious, easy to see, and easy to obtain, guess what will happen. The mouse will quickly lose interest and run off in search of dairy products it can get.
But if you clearly show the mouse what’s in it for her, the odds are she’ll get to the place you want her to go.