Why play hard to get with your handsome prince?

Do you remember Grimm’s Fairy Tales?

Specifically, the story of Sleeping Beauty?

Long story short: it’s all about a beautiful princess who pricks her finger on a spindle and, thanks to a curse from an evil fairy godmother, falls into a deep sleep.

The only thing that can wake her is a kiss from her handsome prince.

That’s not as easy as it sounds.

The HP has to hack his way through an overgrown forest, climb a tower and combat several other obstacles before he can get to her.

It’s a lot of hard work but our hero sticks with it.

He manages to find the sleeping princess in her chamber, kisses her, and the rest is history.

(Or fable, but you get my drift.)

Now, all that palaver is fine in a fairy tale, but what if the princess is you, and the prince is your potential customer?

Is your possible perfect match already besotted and ready to buy from you?

Unlikely. You’ll probably still have to tempt them in.

So why would you make them fight their way through a website that resembles a creepy Disney forest?

I’m talking about:

• Pop-ups that obscure the page so you have to keep batting them away before you get to the content you want
• Long privacy messages creeping up the screen, demanding you agree to who-knows-what
• Pages that promise the earth but end up in a virtual brick wall, with no call to action
• A menu that’s so ‘clever’ (for which, read ‘obscure’) your readers can’t work out which page they need
• No obvious way to get in touch, like a contact form, email address, helpline number or online chat function

Those are just for starters. There are many more offenders.

Why force your website visitors to work this hard to find out how you can help them?

You’ve made sure they can find your site. So stop burying your story, your services and your products in a thicket of twaddle and spurious special offers.

Create a clear path through the forest, and give them all the help they need to reach their destination.

And drop me a line if you think your website is, well, a bit Brothers Grimm.

P.S. Making your Website Work by Gill Andrews is my go-to resource when it comes to creating websites that do what you want them to do. Check it out!