1. No Headline or Opening Equivalent
When people first land at your Web site, they usually only care about one thing—what's in it for them if they stay. Yet our research has shown that 95% of all commercial Web site home pages have no headline or opening equivalent.
"Welcome to Our Site" is NOT a good headline!
Testing by the direct-response industry has consistently shown that you can LOSE as many as 80% of first-time visitors if you don't give them a compelling reason to stay and read what you have to say. This is what a good headline will do.
2. Flash Intros and Unsolicited Music
Can you imagine a physical retail store that made you watch a movie before entering? How about if you were subjected to loud music when you opened the door? The primary reason most people—especially business-to-business buyers—use the Web to is get information, NOT to be entertained.
Usability and preference surveys consistently show that people dislike Flash intros and music that starts automatically.
In some cases, using Flash can be a productive way to expand on what you offer. But it's best to let people get to know you a little before asking them to commit their valuable time to watching your Flash presentation. DO NOT make them click through to get to your home page! Many won't, especially if your Flash presentation takes more than a few seconds to load. Make all Flash presentations OPTIONAL.
Search engine indexing spiders don't like Flash. If you use a Flash-based home page, your search engine rankings will suffer (or be non-existent).
If you MUST use music, make it OPTIONAL. People may be surfing in a business setting and music may disturb their work environment. Also, YOUR taste in music may not appeal to everyone.
Also, be careful with your use of non-Flash graphics. Make sure they have direct relevance to your message. It's the WORDS that make the sale, NOT the graphics. And make sure all your graphics are optimized to the smallest possible file size so they will load quickly.
3. Hard-to-Find Contact Information
It's amazing how many companies try to remain anonymous and then expect people to do business with them! This is especially true of the major Las Vegas casinos. Most of them make it nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find their street addresses! And most make it hard to find their local phone number.
To maximize your credibility and believability, you should include complete contact information or a "Contact Us" link on every page. Make your phone number prominent!
Use a physical street address, not a P.O. Box, whenever possible. Provide a live phone number that is answered by a human being during normal business hours, not a voice mailbox. List your fax number, and toll-free ordering number if you have one. And list an email hotlink to a customer service person who monitors incoming email regularly and who will actually respond.
15 More Bad Practices
Unwanted Pop-Ups and Alert Boxes
Getting your visitors' contact information and permission to keep in touch with them can be a highly productive marketing strategy. However, many people don't like pop-ups and alert boxes to appear automatically. Therefore, it's best to make a compelling offer that motivates visitors to sign up for something on their own without being harassed.
Third-Party Links on Your Home Page
This is equivalent to having an office or storefront that leads to a choice of doors that go to other businesses. When a potential customer arrives, why give that person an immediate opportunity to leave and never return?
If you must link externally, do it on a page that can only be accessed after viewing the important pages at your site. And use the "target" tag to open a new browser window for all third-party links at your site.
Exceptions: You have a pure resource site or you have a paid or reciprocal linking arrangement with another Web site.
Hard-To-Read Text
When people first visit your home page, you have less than 10 seconds to communicate what's in it for them if they stay and read what you have to say.
Therefore, it's important to put your most compelling text "above-the-fold" (in the initial browser viewing area) of your Web pages using an easy-to-read font.
Keep your paragraphs short (3-5 sentences) and use sub-headlines and bullet points wherever possible to break up long text blocks.
Typographical or Grammatical Errors
Seems obvious, yet many, many Web pages contain common spelling and grammatical errors. Your copy is a reflection of your professionalism (or lack of it), your attention to detail (or lack of it) and your commitment to excellence (or lack of it).
Why give visitors any reason to doubt you? Use spelling and grammar checkers to make sure your copy is first-rate.
Over-Use of We, Our, Us, My, Me, Mine and Your Company Name
These are self-serving words that turn off readers. Instead, you should use words like you and your. Before you post copy to your site, run a find and replace utility and check for the number of you-words against the number of us- words. The ratio should be 2-3 you-words for every us-word.
Name, Rank and Serial Number Information
It's amazing how many home pages begin with something like, "The Acme Widget Company is a family-run business located in Cornfield County, Nebraska..." Who cares? What does this have to do with the benefits of your products or services?
If you must include vital statistics, put them on an About Us page and give some reasons why this information is important to readers.
Frames
Some browsers don't support frames. Search engines don't index framed sites properly. Many frames require scrolling to read the text and activate links. Frame scrolling bars take up precious real estate. Frames may not bookmark properly. Don't use them.
Exceptions: Some shopping carts create frames and this is usually acceptable. Interior pages can use frames to display authorized third-party content.
Under Construction Signs/Notices
What good does a page that isn't finished do for your visitors? It just wastes their time and could possibly frustrate or annoy them.
Every page on your site should have a purpose or reason why it's there.
Every page should also have a call to action—what you want the visitor to do after reading the information.
And your site should always be "under construction" in that you should update your pages frequently.
Broken Links
This should be obvious, but broken links are all too frequent. Broken links are annoying, frustrating and unprofessional. Why make your visitors mad?
Missing Graphics
This should also be obvious, but missing graphics are all over the Web—even on professional sites whose principals should know better.
Home Page That Scrolls Into Oblivion
When people first land on your home page, they may just scan it for things that interest them. Many people will not read long home pages that scroll into oblivion or that jhave large blocks of text.
Your home page should usually be no deeper than 1500 pixels (800 pixels is ideal). Use sub-headlines to separate paragraphs. Give visitors links and benefit-related teasers that lead to separate pages.
Exception: Single-purpose, highly-targeted, benefit-laden offer pages.
Free Offers That Aren't Fulfilled Quickly
You should make some kind of free offer on your site that will allow you to capture visitor names and email addresses. But you should only do this if you can fulfill your offer within one business day.
Many sites offer free consultations or information, then fail to deliver. This can permanently damage your credibility.
Non-Secure or Confusing Ordering Procedures
Many sites have non-secure or confusing ordering procedures. Better to not request credit card info, etc., if you can't do it securely. Offer a mail-in, call-in or fax-in alternative.
If you have more than two or three items for sale, invest in a shopping cart ordering system. Make it easy for customers to buy from you.
Reguiring a Plug-In or Software Download
Most people will not take the time to download plug-ins or software to view or do something at your site unless you give them a great reason to do so. They'll just click away.
Exceptions: Most people have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed and PDFs have become the Internet standard for downloadable documents. Nevertheless, it's a good idea to provide a link to the Acrobat Reader downloaod page in conjunction with the offer of a PDF document. Also, most people have Flash plug-ins already installed, so it's okay to use Flash to enhance your visitors' experience. (See #2 above, though.)
Plagiarized Material
This should be obvious, but many people take copyrighted material from other sites and pretend it's theirs. Doing this will eventually bite you and could lead to serious legal problems.
The good news is, most people are flattered to let you use their material, if you ask for their permission and give them proper attribution.
Nick Nichols helps you convert your unproductive Web site into a money making machine. Click here for a 10-Point Marketing Audit.
© 2004 Nick F. Nichols
