So, you have set up a new sexy website- well done!
Surely business will now come pouring in…..if only. We all know that a website is great to have but it doesn’t solve any magic bullet marketing solutions to drive business to you. As most know the key is now to promote, optiomise, market and drive trafic to the site, and to make sure the site is set up to take advantage of the traffic that your hard work, time, effort and probably money has cost you!
I have listed 5 items or points that you should NOT do when you have a new website, and I know this is an extensive list and I am no web guru, so happy to hear more, but these are my 5 points from my experience as a user rather than an expert. In other words, I am happy to be challenged on a longer list.
#1- DON’T MAKE IT HARD FOR ME TO FIND YOU
If I come to your site, I am usually looking for something and if I am in the buying zone, I want to be able to do so easily and to contact you if I have any questions. If I can’t find an email, phone number or Contact Us form, it makes it very hard- and very annoying!
#2- IF YOU HAVE A ‘CONTACT US’ FORM- ANSWER IT WHEN I CONTACT YOU
I could list about 20-30 first hand experiences when I contact the owner of the site or business seeking information (or trying to spend my money) and I NEVER, EVER get a reply. This makes me really @$#$%^ed off and annoyed and I will then send another message and usually get a little aggressive in the second message (most would say why bother, go elsewhere, but I usually want the product or service from this business). When I get no reply again, I am ready to explode….and I will start telling people how crap your service is in your business- without actaully getting the chance to know otherwise.
#3- DON’T HAVE ANNOYING POP UPS THAT COVER MY SCREEN
This is a real annoyance, and seems to be getting more evident with major newspaper sites. Sure, I understand advertising pays your wages and makes all those nice profits, but ‘STOP BLOCKING OUT MY SCREEN’ and making me close the pop up everytime I open the page…I would NEVER buy from the company who pops up in my face all the time.
#4- DON’T JUST TELL ME ALL ABOUT YOU AND HOW GOOD YOU ARE- WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR ME?
I want to know the benefits to me of what you have, not all the details of your resume and what you did when you were 12. I am on your site for a purpose and that is to research, read, buy etc, not to hear how you won the 100 metre dash at Little Athletics therefore you are an expert in selling sneakers. If this is important, have it in just one place in an About tab.
#5- LET ME LEAVE YOUR SITE!
I have come to you due to your great ranking or name, but when I have finished, please let me go. Don’t keep having little computer ‘tings’ and boxes come up saying ‘Are you sure you want to leave this page?’. Even worse when you click YES, but another one comes up and says ‘Are you REALLY sure?’. For %@%#’s sake, let me go…..
So, there are my 5…maybe I had better go and check my own site now to see how much I would annoy myself!
Looking forward to seeing what others get frustrated with on websites!
Tony Ozanne
