Since quite often when we do Search Optimization for a client there are some website design changes involved, I thought it would be good to go over a few things that really turn visitors and potential customers away from a website.

This is a partial list of things that tend to annoy people. I’m sure you can add to it but this is just a starting point.  If you recognize something on the list that your website does, stop reading and go change it.  Who knows how much this is costing you?

• Having a secure site is good.  But the only part that needs to be secure is the checkout.  Let people shop to their hearts content. If they want to use the back arrow, let them, telling them their content has expired is bad. Secure pages are for buying, not shopping.
• Don't make visitors fill out 30 fields in a form to buy a $10 item. You need the basic info required to process the transaction. Making people fill out extra information turns them off. Why do you think so many people shop on Amazon? Because they don’t have to fill out all those fields again.  If you’re doing this, your customers hate it. Amazon on the other hand will probably thank you.

• Don't make people sign up for your site. If they want extra contact from you they’ll ask for it.  We all have more Passwords than we can remember now.  If you want them to buy, let them buy something and forget the secret handshake stuff.
• Don't make people enter their credit card information just to see the full price with tax and shipping. The Credit Card info is for the end after you have told them what the total is.  Let them decide to buy before you ask for their credit card.
• People shop online at work -Stop with the automatic commercials and music.  I have had customers shopping while working at North American Aerospace Defense Command Headquarters-NORAD.  The last thing I want to do is startle them and have them push the wrong button trying to shut off the sound!  If you have music on your website, it’s not cute, take it off.
• Don’t make visitors download an ActiveX control or a Flash update to see your site or products.  If you want to use something like this, I don’t care how cool you think it is either make it compatible with older versions or don’t use it at all.  The cool factor doesn’t do squat if your potential customers are leaving.
• If you take an email address from your visitor, don't abuse it. An e-mail once in a while is fine; an e-mail every day is annoying. And don't sell it. For crying out loud. Would you want someone to do that to you? Make you money from selling your product or service, not your email list.
• Menus and price lists that are PDFs don't always load nicely. If it's worth being on your site, it's worth being a regular Web page. Unless you are selling wholesale only and you don’t want more than ten customers.
• Ads, if you must have them, should be relevant. If you sell sporting equipment, let’s keep the advertising in the same subject.
• Weird background colors, strange artsey fonts are hard to read. Don't make people suffer just to figure out what you have to offer.  They’ll just go someplace else.
• Blinking banners, words, lights, buttons,… Really?
• Make sure your site works in all the common browsers.  Don’t assume that just because it looks good in yours, it works in all of them.
• When you offer a “Click to enlarge photo,” make the photo bigger! Don’t just show the same picture in a popup window!
• Product descriptions should be bulleted and easy to skim. If you want to give detailed descriptions put them at the bottom after the easy to get to information. Don't make people read “War And Peace,” when they really want to know just one thing about what you have to offer.

I know this isn’t everything that bugs visitors. Feel free to write me and I’ll add suggestions to the next list.

No amount of Search Optimization can help your business if your website frustrates your visitors.  Before we send tons of traffic to your site, make sure it is ready for business.  Call 800-789-0017 and we’ll help you get customers not just traffic.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 11:52 am and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.