Here's the article in this month's issue of "Ask The Experts" in Business First.

“My website gets a good amount of visitors, but very few are following up and contacting me. Why?”

Potential customers searching for your services online are doing so because they’re doing a bit of research before they buy. Odds are they’re looking for something your website isn’t providing: Useful information? A pleasant experience? A positive image? In the last few years web design standards have risen dramatically and the public is demanding all these things and more, and your website is often the first aspect of your company that someone sees, so it’s no place to cut corners.

Is your website adequately representing your company and putting forth the best possible image? Try to view your website like a visitor unfamiliar with your company would and you’ll probably find several areas where your website is ineffective. There are lots of reasons where your website visitors can become frustrated, disinterested or just plain turned-off. Space prevents me from elaborating, but for a list of the top 10 website pet-peeves and how to have a website that converts a large percentage of visitors to customers, simply visit www.makespacelab.com and click in the Business First box at the bottom.

Top 10 Pet Peeves of Web Design
How much time your visitors spend has an enormous effect on them doing business with you. Here are 10 surefire ways to make them go running to your competition.

1. Long animation intros.
Most of your website visitors won't have the time, patience or interest in sitting through a lengthy animated intro, or even a short one for that matter. The vast majority of visitors are coming to your site for information or to complete a task, such as ordering your products, not to be subjected to your dated web designer's animation abilities. Ex-ing the flash intros will prevent your visitors from ex-ing out your website window and moving on.

2. Bad Navigation.
The best way to have visitors leave your website quickly is to frustrate them with clumsy menus and bad navigation. Website content needs to be accessible, so navigation should be user friendly and intuitive to the point that it anticipates your visitor's needs. Remember, most visitors want information, and if they can't access the information they came for, they'll attempt to find it elsewhere.

3. Pop-Ups.
Everybody hates spam, and pop-ups are usually spam. For this reason, many people disable them from appearing in their browsers, so it's important that your website content doesn't open in a new window. Even if it isn't spam, they may never see it. Did I mention everybody hates spam?

4. Disabled back buttons.
People like to be able to utilize their own browser tools, so disabling them in any form is a bad idea. If they need to access the back button, it's probably because your website content is either incomplete, inadequate, or badly organized. Disabling them is just another way to frustrate them. Furthermore, disabling browser features can adversely affect your placement on search engines like Google and Yahoo.

5. Hidden Contact Information.
Sometimes, visitors come to your website just to get your address or phone number. This is a good thing! Making them search around your website for this info is not. Make it as easy as possible and put your contact information on every page, in plain sight!

6. Inadequate or Outdated Content.
Again, most website visitors seek information in the form of copy content. If your website provides it, they are much more likely to spend significant amounts of time on your website and return often, greatly increasing the odds of them contacting you, which in turn increases the likelihood of them doing business with you.

7. Jumping Through Hoops.
Websites that require people to enter information or register as a guest to access all or portions of their content are asking for too much. If a customer can't get what they need from your website they'll move on to one that will. The same holds true for websites that require visitors to download additional software to view the website.

8. Slow Websites.
Websites that that are not optimized for speed, have heavy files, or are hosted on a slow server are very frustrating. Again, many website visitors don't have the time or patience for a slow loading website. They'll move on to your competitor's website faster than you can say “loading”.

9. Dead Links.
Nothing says “I don't give a crap about the experience of my website visitor” better than dead links. People really like it when things work properly, and get a bit miffed when they don't. This is especially true, when your link promises them the very information that they need, only to do nothing or to open a “does not exist” error page.

10. Repetition and reloading Content.
Featuring a song or video on the main page of your website may seem like a good idea. It's not. As the main index page often contains kinetic links that are accessible from that page only, vistors may visit that page often. And every time they do, the into song or video reloads. This can be annoying at best. Just ask Sisyphus. Uh, never mind.

If your website is guilty of more than a few of these infractions, you should consider having your website redesigned. For a list of web designers we recommend, click here.

BACK TO TOP

Here's the entire article from the snippet that appeared in the April issue of "Ask The Experts" in Business First.

10 ELEMENTS OF A SUCCESSFUL WEBSITE
It’s well known that businesses without an effective website are missing revenue opportunities daily. So why don’t all businesses make their websites a priority? One reason is that they may be confused on where to start or what a successful website needs. Here are 10 elements that all websites should have:

1) Navigation: The site should be easy to navigate and the menu items should be easily accessible from every page. The viewer should always know exactly where he or she is on the site and have easy access to where he or she would like to be. A “Site Map” is a great tool for this purpose and will be used if available. This may sound elementary, but most websites could be improved upon in this area. Remember, there is a fine line between an interactive menu and an annoying one, so functionality is key!

2) Design: People are visually-oriented creatures, and utilizing great graphics is a good way to make your website more appealing. However, it's important not to go overboard with too much. Scrolling text, animation, special effects, and Flash intros should be used sparingly and only to emphasize a point for maximum effect.

3) Content: This is the backbone of your website. Not only does your content play a major role in your search engine placement, it is the reason most visitors access your site. Your content should be informative, easy to read, and concise. Well thought out content will do more than anything else to make your site engaging, effective and popular.

4) Web-Friendly: No matter how informative, beautiful, and easy to use your website is, it's useless unless it's web-friendly. It is important that your web designer know the keys to making your website work on all the major web browsers, utilizing meta and alt tags, and the many other factors that effect not only your search engine placement but also the visual appearance of your site.

5) Interaction: A truly effective website engages your visitors immediately and continues to hold their attention through EVERY page, as well as influences them to contact you. Again, there is a fine line between "interaction" and "annoyance", so the level of interaction should never outweigh the benefits.

6) Information Accessibility: Not all visitors to your site are interested in, or have the time to peruse, the entire site. They may only need to access a phone number or address, or just a certain bit of information. For this reason, it's important to place key information in plain sight, in areas that are easily accessible. We’ve all had the experience of not being able to locate some needed information on a website. The experience is frustrating at best, and a frustrated visitor won’t stay on your site very long and is unlikely to return.

7) Intuitiveness: A great website knows what your visitor is thinking and caters directly to his or her needs, and its elements are arranged in a way that make sense. A good website displays all the information that a customer may want to access, while a great website gently nudges the visitor’s activity to areas of the site the business owners want them to see, all while giving the visitor a sense of being in control of their own experience on the site.

9) Maintenance (Updates): There are several very good reasons to update a website often. Not only does it give your visitor a great reason to return (and there is a ratio between the number of visits and the odds of converting visitors to paying customers), but it can also drastically improve your organic search engine rankings, which in turn increases traffic to your site. In the end, it adds up to more customers and more revenue.

10) Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Your website needs to contain content that not only makes sense to your visitors, but contains key words that are highly relevant to potential searches on search engines like Google and Yahoo. Furthermore, there is a long list of constantly changing rules that need to be regularly observed in order for your website to continuously rank high on these search engines. For this reason it's important that your web design firm is well-versed in SEO, as many of these optimizations must be done as the website is being developed, and others after it's completed. It's your money, so make sure your website is designed right the first time!

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