Web Design Articles & Project Updates

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Paginated Articles Equal Bad Marketing Mojo!! Posted: 31 Mar 2010 06:31 AM PDT This content is from: eGrace Creative I received an email newsletter that included a link to a great article about how Perry Noble prepares sermons. Excellent content – the kind most Pastors love to consume. I stopped reading after only one third of the article, not because it wasn’t good, but because of article pagination. Just look… I immediately thought, “I should have known.” This particular website is locked into some outdated marketing principles that say “offer good content, but smatter it with monetization.” Let me tell you why paginating your articles is, in my opinion, bad marketing mojo… It stinks from a usability standpoint. If I click the page numbers out of order, my browser’s back and forward buttons now create an illogical puzzle, and why should I have to click a link to read more twice during a single article? It messes with the sharable nature of the content. If I’m on page three and tweet the current url, it’s a different url than the article’s actual primary url. It costs more server load. Yes, the pages can be cached, but some elements will still load on every click. Thankfully, I have broadband. The two-fold purpose is obvious: 1.) get three pageviews instead of one, thereby decreasing bounce rates and increasing the marketability of advertising spots, and 2.) make me look at more ads (which are wallpapered all over this site). So the excuse I hear so often is that you get more content above the fold with pagination. I would argue that I still have to scroll some and scrolling really isn’t as much of a problem as loading another page. The other excuse is that it breaks content into more readable chunks. Baloney. The bottom line is that modern content consumers are more savvy than ever before in their understanding of how websites work. It doesn’t take much more than common sense for me to realize I’m just a marketing target and you’re dying to get me to see more ads, click more ads, and sell more ads for your business. I’m not against monetizing content. I monetize content myself and also work hard to accomplish that goal for clients. But please, please realize that your bad marketing mojo with it’s immediate “click” payoff really just turns me into an untrusting skeptic. It really seems to me that developing untrusting skeptics is the opposite of good marketing. I’m a brand loyalist but I’m only loyal to brands I trust. Watch your marketing mojo! Related Posts: Making The Most of Being Under Construction Marketing Yourself Honestly Bread and Butter Front and Center Why Your Church Website Should Cost More than $100 Can Small Be Good? Share and Enjoy:

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