Web Usability And Internet Marketing

Web visitors are far more active and demanding than television viewers. If you ramble, at best they’ll begin to skim read, and at worst they’ll stop reading altogether. You cannot force someone to consume written content sequentially. Web usability experts will tell you that you must continually strive for their attention and allow for skim readers.

The difference between active and passive visitors is easily demonstrated. Compare how you watch shows on television with how you watch them on the Internet. I watch many shows on television that I would never watch on the Internet. With television, I’m limited by what’s on and am unable to jump ahead. The choice and interactivity of the Internet dramatically changes what I watch and how I watch it.

If you extrapolate web usability norms for written content to other types of media, such as audio and video, you may presume that you should give the visitor the power to skip as they see fit. You may think web visitors like interactivity, and therefore you should cater to that. Perhaps that is best for most websites, but not necessarily if you’re trying to sell something.

I’m inclined to think that a passive visitor would be more receptive to a sales pitch than an active visitor. This is just my opinion, but I think a television viewer — passive, going with the flow — has less distractions from your call to action. An active visitor to a website has more possible actions he or she could take, making your call to action less prominent. I think that by reducing the choice, there is less opportunity to become distracted.

I would be interested to know the average ROI for television advertising and for Internet advertising. Obviously, there are good adverts and bad adverts, but my hunch is that television is a more powerful advertising medium. Perhaps the Internet hasn’t been fully utilized yet.

By not allowing your visitors to skip content, you have more control over the message you convey. Copywriters make a lot of effort to produce sales pages that accommodate skim readers. With video and audio, why spend this effort at all? Why give them the power to skip?

Sure, they may become frustrated by the lack of interactivity and leave your website. This will definitely be true for some visitors, but perhaps not for enough visitors to negate the advantages gained from removing interactivity.

It could be that by giving them the ability to skip you’re reducing your sales video’s effectiveness to appease a minority. Maybe, maybe not. As ever, there is only one way to find out: test.