Grab the Visitor’s Attention
Featured Products: Grab a visitor’s attention and keep it!
There are many ways to “entice” a visitor to complete an online purchase. One of the commonly used methods is to display a featured product in a prominent location on the site’s homepage. This is often a very effective method of grabbing the visitor’s interest. Unfortunately you don’t just want to grab their attention; you want to maintain a level of interest that results in a purchase. That ‘letting go’ of a promotionally charged site visitor can mean the difference in purchase conversion. Here’s an example of how a site does not ‘hold on’ to the visitor:
- Visitor views the homepage (see image below) and then decides to click on a featured product.
- Visitor views the featured product’s informational page (see image below) and then decides that he/she wants to view other similar items or featured products.
- The disconnect occurs at this step because the site does not offer an easy method of viewing other similar items or featured products from this product page. The page does indicate they are viewing a Featured Product; however, the navigational choices displayed do not clearly support this categorization.
There are several solutions available to resolve this issue. First, include a breadcrumb identifying the visitor’s location on the site. This breadcrumb should have clickable links allowing the visitor to navigate freely within the hierarchy of this product’s location on the site. Second, offer smaller, clickable, thumbnail images of similar products and/or featured products. In addition, include a link near the thumbnail images that would allow the visitor to “see more”. The solution for your site could be derived from part or all of the above options, but the key focus is to ensure you do no ‘let go’ of the visitor once you have captured their attention.
Scott Gunter -
WebIQ Project Manager