How to Eliminate Distractions and Increase Conversions

Conversion optimizers are in the business of attention management, just like magicians.

It’s your job, as an optimizer, to direct attention and focus your visitors on the next step. Yet, so few of us do this effectively. Landing pages are full of distractions, calls to action are cluttered, etc.

How can you eliminate distractions? How can you command attention, keep it and direct it the way you want? What does any of this have to do with increasing your conversion rate?

What You Should Be Focusing Your Visitors On

Here’s the hard and fast rule: one page, one goal.

We’ll call this goal your most wanted action. Why? Because there are likely other actions you’d like your visitors to take, but you must focus in on one per page.

For example, let’s say you want visitors on your home page to end up on the pricing page. However, it’d also be pretty nice if they submitted their email and signed up for your newsletter.

So, what’s your most wanted action? To find out, ask yourself two questions…

1. What’s the action you want your visitors to take most?
2. What action do your visitors want to take most?

The second question will ensure you’re being realistic. Using the same example, your visitors might not be ready to navigate to the pricing page yet. Perhaps they don’t know enough about your product or that’s too big of a commitment for their level of intent.

So, making “move to the pricing page” your most wanted action, in this case, would be a mistake.

Your most wanted action should be simple, distraction-free and realistic.

Your goal, as an optimizer, is to focus your visitors’ attention on the most wanted action. This is where being a magician comes into play…

Let’s take a look at some examples. This time, we’ll look at pricing pages and how different sites focus attention on their most wanted action.

Worst: BuzzSumo

I’m willing to bet that BuzzSumo’s most wanted action is “Start Free Trial!” for either the Pro or Agency plan. Unless the majority of their visitors have a $999 a month budget, that’s the best most wanted action. However, by making the Enterprise plan the contrasting orange color, they’re directing attention to it.

When I first arrived on the page, I focused on “$999” and assumed the other plans were just as expensive. Had I been an average visitor looking for a basic solution, I might have bounced based on wrong assumptions.

Bad: Desk.com

Desk.com has four options, two of which are aggressively competing for attention. “I’m the most popular.” “Yeah, but I’m not going to be around forever.” Which should visitors choose?

The effort to focus visitors is there, but it falls short. By trying to draw attention to both, they’ve actually just divided attention even more.

Good: Unbounce

Three options, but one is clearly highlighted and marked “Best Value”. Simple, effective attention management.

Best: 15Five

15Five has one plan. No options. Nothing else competing for your attention. No need to choose between plans, weigh your options or get distracted by feature lists.

Is this realistic for everyone? No, you likely have a more complex pricing structure, but it’s a valuable reminder to simplify and remove as many distractions as possible.

In each of the other examples, your brain needed to do a lot of heavy lifting. What is included in each of the plans? Which plan is best for your company? Do you really need all of these features? Do all of them have a free trial?

Here, your brain just needs to make one decision: Do you want the product or not?

What Is Distraction?

Distraction, then, is anything that prevents (or slows) your visitors from taking your most wanted action.

In the ResearchXL model, distraction falls under the heuristic analysis category…

Essentially, everything that does not contribute to your most wanted action is a distraction. For example…

• Large navigations that take up a lot of screen space.
• Distracting fonts and colors.
• Moving images.
• Additional calls to action with high contrast colors.

Note that it is not only internal factors that distract your visitors. They can also be distracted by external factors (their phones, their environment, their social media, their email).

Of course, they are also more likely to be distracted when they’re bored. (That’s why you’re more likely to get distracted when working on a client report on a Friday night than when watching your favorite TV show.)

Example: Enterprise

To demonstrate how common distraction is, WiderFunnel analyzed Enterprise’s PPC landing page, which also serves as their home page. What they found? 12 points of distraction on just one page…

Note how minor some of these distractions seem. Distraction isn’t always Cosmic Sans and flashing banners. Chances are, your site is distracting your visitors from your most wanted action without your knowledge.

How Easily Distracted Is Your Brain?

Is distraction really that big of a problem? None of these sites seem particularly distracting. Chris Goward explains it well…

So, just how often are we distracted? The facts and figures might surprise you.

In 2000, the average human attention span in Canada was 12 seconds. By 2013, that number had fallen to 8 seconds, which also happens to be a second shorter than a goldfish. You know, the fish notorious for being unfocused.

Another study found that your phone distracts you even when you’re not using it. If you even feel the vibration or experience the phantom vibration syndrome, you’ve been distracted. Who is it? What do they want? Is what they’re saying more interesting than this site?

So, we can pay attention to something for no more than 8 seconds at a time and we’re routinely distracted by the mere idea that someone wants to speak to us. Now add in email notifications, Facebook notifications, new @mentions, people in the office, etc.

While none of the sites above seem particularly distracting, it doesn’t take much. Anything you can do to eliminate distractions will go a long way.

How to Identify Distraction Points

As mentioned, distraction falls under heuristic analysis, which is experience-based assessment. The outcome of this type of analysis is not guaranteed to be correct, but it can be “good enough”.

It’s as close as we get to using opinions to optimize. Of course, it isn’t random commentary, it’s structured, experienced evaluation based on core concepts (like distraction).

Here’s how to identify distraction points…

1. Review your entire site, page by page.
2. In a group setting, look for anything (design, copy, etc.) that might be distracting visitors from your most wanted action. Remember, if it’s not motivation, it’s friction.
3. Record your findings.

Introducing: Visual Hierarchy

Distraction has a lot to do with visual hierarchy, which is refers to the arrangement of elements in a way that implies importance. So, for example, try ranking these circles in order of importance…

Purple, green, yellow, orange, right? That’s visual hierarchy.

Certain parts of your site are more important than others, which is why you need visual hierarchy. It’s what draws attention to your call to action. It’s why the headline is always bigger and bolder than the subheadline…

Assess the visual hierarchy of your site, page by page. What catches your eye the most? Are the right elements at the top of your hierarchy? If your call to action is low on the visual hierarchy, that means there are too many distractions.

Questions to Ask Yourself

When trying to identify distractions on your site, ask yourself the following questions…

• What’s on the page that’s not helping the visitor take action?
• Is anything unnecessarily drawing attention?
• What can I remove without compromising performance?
• Are there navigation elements that could be removed?
• Is the top header taking up too much screen space?
• Is there any unrelated copy here?

Now What…?

After heuristic analysis, you’ve identified “areas of interest”. That is, you’ve identified areas of high distraction that you have reason to believe would be solid “testing grounds”.

In order to validate your heuristic analysis, you’ll need to start testing. You can try…

1. Removing distracting elements.
2. Reducing the level of distraction associated with those elements.

Of course, distraction is not all about calls to action. Lots of elements on a site does not necessarily mean it’s distracting. If they are relevant, they might be fine.

For example, product pictures and Q&A on an eCommerce product page are positive elements because they serve the most wanted action. “Other Products on Sale”, however, might be a distraction.

Conclusion

The question to ask is always: Does this contribute to someone taking the most wanted action?

Conversion rate optimization isn’t magic, but we are all sleight of hand artists. Our job is to focus attention in a way that results in more conversions. [Tweet It!]

Here’s how to do it…

1. Identify your most wanted action.
2. Conduct heuristic analysis by reviewing your entire site, page by page.
3. In a group setting, look for anything (design, copy, etc.) that might be distracting visitors from your most wanted action.
4. Review your visual hierarchy. Move your most wanted action to the top.
5. Record your findings to identify “areas of interest”.
6. Begin testing those areas.