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Articles Index >> Marketing
5 Sure Fire Ways To Send Visitors Away For
Good
by Michael Cheney
So your traffic is going through the roof yeah? It's all becoming a bit too
much? You're getting lots of sales enquiries through your website every day?
You want to send visitors away from your site for good? Just follow these five
Sure Fire Ways and your site will be a tumbleweed ghost town in no time.
Way No. 1 - Clog Up Their Internet Connection
Imagine it. They're happily surfing around on Google looking for your 'widget'
and everything's going smoothly. Your website appears in the first page listings
(congratulations you must have employed magnet4web or another highly-esteemed
website marketing company!) 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 on 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 -
for good.
Way 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..
Way 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..
Way 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,
span round a bit to an 80s sounding techno tune and then re-constituted 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).
Way No. 5 -"I am five years' old - I like things that flash"
One day in the future a law will be passed that will make it illegal to use
scrolling text, flashing images, rotating heads, animated animals and bouncing
cursors on a website. Your website is here to do business. It is supposed to
be a serious tool in your marketing armoury. It should be used to convey useful
information to your visitors and convince them that you are worth doing business
with. Dress it up with flashing icons, swirling graphics, flashing logos and
spinning pictures and the merry-go of visual delights will just make your visitors
sick. They will leave your glitzy fairground never to return..
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