I recently tested a clever little Google gadget on a site I own. The idea was this: visitors would be creeped out by the little bug running around the header image, so they would reach into their wallets and buy the pest repellent product and solve their problem.

Sounds like a decent theory, right? I mean, the visitors are there to solve a pest problem. Little creepy crawlies in their home. And the product sells very well as it is. So if I not-so-gently remind them of the pests crawling around their house, they will jump to buy my product!

Turns out – WRONG.

After a day of zero sales (when I always have several sales/day), I decided to look a little deeper into the problem. I have a nice research tool that does a screen recording of every visitor to this site. So I popped the popcorn, sat down on the couch, and started watching my customers for the day.

What I found was a slow loading Google gadget that left a big white empty space at the top of my page. My visitors acted confused by it, rather than totally enamored like I expected. It was a big distraction from my headline!

So I pulled the gadget off my site and waited for a reaction. Well, last night I made a sale within one hour of removing the distractor! Lesson learned.

Be careful adding “clever little thingies” to your sales pages! They might distract rather than attract.

Until next time,
Reuben D. Rock

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