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I talk a lot about getting inside your readers’ heads, and offering solutions to their problems, rather than yours. Sometimes, though I need to read my own advice.  I was looking at one of my Squidoo lenses (which were sort of one page mini-sites) and saw that while it got  traffic, the click through rates were terrible.  I was trying to figure out why that was and how I could increase them.

The page was about Thomas the Tank Engine coloring pages (in honor of my nephew, who loves Thomas).  I had lots of links to coloring pages for all the different characters, but none of them were converting. We got paid based on visits, clicks, sales, and other interactions with the pages, so clicks were important, even if they didn’t lead directly to selling something.

Too much friction

As I looked at it, I realized that I had all the links in a big block.  There were about 20 of them, one right after the other.  Sure, the page had exactly what my visitors wanted (pictures of each train character), but that big block of text was awfully intimidating.  You’d have to carefully read through all those links to find the engine you were looking for.  It was too hard.  So, nobody clicked.

Eureka! Easy access will increase click through rates!

So, I reorganized.  I divided the links into categories, by character (Thomas, James, Henry, etc.)  I put a big headline on top of each one so they were easy to spot.  Now all my visitors had to do was scroll down to find the right train.  Clicks shot up from 1% to 24% over two days. An increase of 2300% for a few minutes work.  Go look at your own pages. Would a little redecorating make a big difference?  Try it and find out.