7 Worst things on websites
My personal views on the seven worst things you can do to your website:
- Flash intros. Personally, I hate flash intros. When I visit a website I want the information I came for, not some fancy flash showing off a web designer’s talents. You have about 10 seconds to grab a visitor’s attention — don’t waste that precious time or they WILL go elsewhere.
- Ad nauseum. Home pages filled with ads, related or unrelated to your services, is distracting and leaves a visitor wondering what you’re selling or providing for a service. On a personal note, it makes me feel the site is “spammy.”
- Pop-ups. I detest pop-up ads appearing when I’m entering or leaving a website. Pop-ups were the rage “way back when” but today are perceived as annoyances by most people.
- Typos. If you have a lot of typos on your website, your visitors may wonder if your business can deliver a professional service when time and care wasn’t taken to reflect that on the website.
- Asking for TMI (too much information). Have you visited a website where the contact form asks for too much information when you want to make a simple inquiry? It’s like contest forms where they ask for date of birth, age, income — that’s my personal information and certainly doesn’t belong on most websites. Ask for the bare minimum of information you need to give the visitor an informed response — you can obtain further information, if needed, once they become a customer or in follow-up.
- Music. Turn down the music, or better yet, leave it off. Potential visitors may be accessing your site from work (shhh, don’t tell the boss), from a public library, or from home late at night when their children are sleeping — and, hello, everyone is now awake because of the loud music. Leave the music off with the option for the visitor to turn it on.
- Speed it up. Make sure your images are optimized for the web, don’t put too many large photos or ads on a page, make sure your links/link images don’t drag you down. I’ve visited a few sites where the coding for a link to another site bogged down the home page loading — and I then promptly left the site.
Remember, treat visitors to your site like they are guests. Is your home page pleasing to the eye? Does it make a visitor feel welcomed? Is it clutter-free? Give visitors what they want fast, with succinct information, and easy navigation or they WILL go elsewhere.
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