Recently I invested in a small laptop that came with Windows 10.
Each time you go on the internet with it, a little window pops up asking if you’d like to turn on “distraction-free reading”. It eliminates banners and sidebars from whatever site you’re on – whether Facebook or someone’s site/blog.
It’s almost as if you opened a document rather than a website.
Given that we’re flooded with information on an hourly basis, this can be helpful (imagine reading just the main articles, no distracting advertisements). Unless of course you’re the business owner trying to connect with readers via banners and sidebars (yep, even your blog sidebar).
Then you have an issue — these forms of “advertising”, as well as pay per click ads, paid banner ads and sidebar paid ads may not be seen by the very audience you’re paying (or using valuable website real estate) to get in front of.
The Extreme Client Care™, or customer delight, experience Windows 10, and other distraction-free apps, is creating for their users actually does the reverse for the business owner trying to reach that same user. As a customer, I love this feature. As a business owner, not so much.
3 Ways to Ensure Distraction-Free Apps Don’t Hurt Your Business
- Ensure that your most important content is in the primary column/section of your website. Have helpful information in the sidebar, but not so important that if it vanished, your visitors would be left with half the story.
- When creating info (sales) pages, don’t focus on creating an amazing banner/masthead. Instead focus on answering the questions readers (potential buyers) have about your program, product or service.
- Shift up the media you use. Host a live webcast, share the slidedeck on SlideShare and then embed it in a blog post on your site. Speak to your readers in as many ways as possible in as many places as appropriate for who they are.
Will this stop people from selecting “distraction-free reading” or setting up ad blockers on their sites and phones? Not 100%, no. It will help you connect with those who resonate with your message however. . .and that’s really the point.
Questions? Thoughts? Comment below. . .I respond to all comments personally.