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We are all hoping that our website will attract visitors that will either buy our product / service or at least contact us with a valid enquiry.
If you want to send visitors away from your site for good - just follow these five ways and your site will be a ghost town in no time.
No. 1 - Clog Up Their Internet Connection
Imagine it. They're happily surfing around on Google looking
for whatever you offer and everything's going smoothly.
Your website
appears in the first page listings (congratulations you must
have employed 12website or another highly-esteemed website
marketing ompany!) and they click through to you. Then their
internet connection starts to clog up. It is positively groaning
and creaking under the strain of downloading your homepage which
has so many images it takes over 30 seconds to appear.
They look at the progress bar at the bottom of their screen. It reads
'20%'. They look at their watch and then click on the little 'X'
at the top right of their screen. Well done - you've just sent
away a visitor or customer for good.
No. 2 - 'I am not a Number - I am a free Man'
Along come some more visitors. They lick their lips in
anticipation of viewing your widgets which they are very
interested in buying - they have their credit card handy.
They land on your homepage and all is well, at first. "The
benefits of choosing Widgets Inc. are as follows..." Your
homepage is laden with customer-focused benefits and selling
points - excellent. But wait a minute. What's that at the bottom
of the page? It's not what I think it is, is it? Oh dear, there
in black and white is one of the fundamental no-nos in web
design that is guaranteed to send the message "This website was
built by my dog":
"Welcome - you are visitor number 102"
Regardless of the number (and let's face it 80% are either you or your family!) you will be sending away people in droves. Well done - your site is becoming less busy by the day. Let's move on to way number three.. More info on website redesign.
No. 3 - "Help me Buy from You - Please..."
They're lost. You have built the site around what seems a
logical approach but your visitors are lost. You've given
most prominence to testimonials but they just want to send you
an email. They click on three, four and sometimes five pages but
can't find your phone number or email address anywhere. But it's
okay - of course they have a spare quarter of an hour to hunt
through your website (that doesn't have a site map) to find your
contact details when they already have another window open with
your competitor's website - complete with email address, phone
number, fax number, street address, mobile number, map and GPS
coordinates..
Yes - you've guessed it - you're one step closer to that
ghost-town.. Read more about website links.
No. 4 - 'Please Let Me Watch Intro'
Yes, admit it - you once thought the best thing on the planet
was a website that started up by having a revolving animation
of the company logo that exploded, spin round a bit to an 80s
sounding techno tune and then re-constitute itself in the centre
of the screen with the immortal words:
"Click here to enter site"
Strange that - "enter site". That's what all your visitors were
trying to do when they typed in your web address or clicked on
your link but instead they were faced with Jean Michelle Jarre
and some possessed bit of code that replicated the effect of
someone regurgitating your business' corporate identity over the
screen. Nice. Flash intro = trash intro. Use 'em (the intros) and
lose 'em (the visitors).
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