You know when a web site isn’t working for you. The beauty of the web is that you don’t have to tolerate it for more than a second before you’re gone… on to another site that better meets your needs.
But what actually happened on that site you abandoned? Maybe it just didn’t offer what you were looking for… or maybe it did, but failed to let you know.
We can quickly sense when we are on track to finding the content we’re looking for by detecting what some experts call the “scent” of information. As it turns out, people behave on web sites in a manner very similar to dogs sniffing around for food – or whatever else they’re looking for. We get on a particular scent trail and follow it.
So designing and writing the content of your web site around the idea of creating easy-to-follow scent trails is vital to your success online.