As the designated web-savvy member of the Blanchard clan, I was called into action this morning when my mother needed help finding a carpt cleaner that could come before company came for a family reunion this evening. I pulled up a Google search and checked out a few local results, one of which was Plush Carpet Cleaners.
Now, take another gander at the screenshot above…and then look at the name of the company. What is wrong here? “Oh wait, Gregg, I got it…their Adsense color scheme doesn’t match their layout?” Nope, try again. “Hmmm, they should have gone with a block of 4 ads instead of 3?” Nope.
“Now hold on a sec, let me think really hard…could it be that they are letting their competitors advertise on their website? ” DING, DING, DING…we have a winner…well a non-winner actually in the case of Plush Carpet Cleaners.
Who in their right mind would sell advertising space on their website to their competitors? Well, 1000s of webmasters are doing this without even realize by putting Google Adsense on a sales page or a website with a product they are trying to sell. This is just one classic example of what I call an ‘escape hatch’.
Definition of Escape Hatch
Any place on your website where the visitor could leave your site by clicking a link.
Visitors are hard to get which makes each visitor to your website valuable. You don’t want to give them opportunities to leave, you want to keep them on your pages as long as possible to increase the chances of them becoming a customer.
It’s like when I ask a girl out, I sometimes say “Hey Laura, so I know you’ve probably got tons going on and are super busy that night, and I’m pretty busy too so if you can’t then it’s OK, but do you wanna go grab a bite on Friday night…but if not it’s ok because you probably have something fun already planned and I do too…actually…yeah.” Wow, such confidence, such courage. And I wonder why I’m single…
The problem here? I have basically given the girl 5 ways to get out of it before I even give her a chance to say YES!
The moral of the story is, don’t be like Gregg when he asks girls out. Show the visitor to your site you are confident in what you have to say and they are important. Prove to them that the most valuable thing they could possibly do while on your site is to order your product or service by giving them no other option (or at least as few as possible). Try not to place convenient escape hatches within easy reach were they can bail, keep them there and engaged in your content as long as possible.
And for Pete’s sake…if you DO have an escape hatch, make sure it doesn’t lead to a competitor…
(This message was paid for by the committe to abolish Google Adsense on company/sales websites. Come on people…$0.50 a click can’t be worth it)
