Website Design
It's Easy to Drive Away Web Traffic
by Joanna Pearlstein, Senior Associate Editor eMedia WeeklyTired of too many hits on your website? Sick of fulfilling orders? Follow these simple steps and you, too, can drive customers away.
1. Fail to provide simple corporate information. Many customers want to know who they're buying from. If you fail to provide your company's street address, toll and toll-free phone numbers, and a bit of corporate background, your customers may look elsewhere.
2. Make it complicated. Some customers come to your site knowing just what they want. A search feature – especially one with hints for successful searches – is a must for websites serious about getting information to customers. Ditch the search tool and watch your hits drop.
3. Rebel against intuitive URL and directory schemes. Savvy visitors to your website often try to get around by guessing URL's such as "www.company.com/product" or "www.company.com/search." Some high-end Web development tools generate ultra complex URL's. A website filled with very long URL's. with lots of numbers will flummox visitors.
4. Use frames. Frames can make it hard for visitors to know where they are or to come back to a specific page – another great way to hold onto your customers.
5. Require a plug-in. By forcing visitors to download software in order to access even basic information about your company and products, you can increase the hits to your competitors' websites. Requiring a specific platform or browser version in another good bet.
6. Create pages that are printer unfriendly. Choose extremely wide layouts that are cut-off when printed to letter-size paper.
7. Refuse to update your content. Customers are irritated when companies introduce new products or services but fail to promote them on their websites. If your index page [home page] is static, visitors may not try to find out more.
8. Embed a song in your website, especially one that begins playing at full volume.
9. Don't bother to fix broken links, typos or scripting errors.
10. Buy a buggy server, not one that's robust and reliable. The best way to assure your potential customers go elsewhere is to make sure they never get to your content in the first place.
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