Your visitors are your most important Internet asset. Without
visitors, you don't have buyers, and without buyers you don't
have a business.
But visitors are a fickle beast. Somewhat like a cautious
mouse - always sniffing and nosing about, but at the first
sign of trouble off they scamper.
Your web site could be littered with tiny little signs that
are causing hundreds of visitors a week to simply close their
browser window on you. At the first sign that you are
untrustworthy your visitor will be clicking off elsewhere.
This could be costing you a serious loss of revenue.
1) Hype and Over Sell Don't hype it up Too Much.
Always keep to an appropriate tone, always keep it believable.
If it becomes over-hyped, people will soon dismiss your
venture, and there goes your customer.
2) Avoid mis-typez, spelling errors and sloppy grammar.
These are all potential signs that your product is also
shabbily put together. If you haven't taken the time with
your web site, who's to say that you have taken the time
developing your product?
3) Missing Elements.
Missing graphics and dead links give the impression that you
might be going out of business, or that you don't care. It
looks like your site hasn't been maintained…and if this is the
case, your customer is immediately going to be concerned about
the product and after sales service.
4) Last Updated July 1997.
Never put a text line on your pages that says "last updated xx
July 1997". This will always give the impression that your
site is old…even if it was updated two weeks ago. If you
carelessly forget to update that line (it happens) visitors
may not bother to look any further because they think that it
is dated information. Worse still visitors may believe that
you are out of business because it has been so long since you
changed the content.
If it is important that your visitor knows that the
information is completely up to date, then ask your developer
to use some JavaScript code to automatically write in the
current date every time the page is loaded.
5) Still Under Construction.
There is no need to put an "under construction" sign. Every
single web site out there is under construction. You are also
sending the visitor the impression that you are not ready for
their sale yet…this is very much the wrong signal to send.
6) You Are Visitor Number 123.
Hit counters on your page are unprofessional. You don't want
anyone knowing they are only the 123rd person visiting that
page. It makes you look small and unpopular, again not a good
signal to send out.
7) Multi Award Winning Site?
Forget about small unknown web site awards. There are soooo
many on offer now that it is meaningless…who cares! If it is
a well known, prestigious award, or if it matters to your
target audience, then go for it. Otherwise don't waste the
bandwidth sticking some logo up there.
This is only one of hundreds of original Internet Marketing
articles that can be found in Work the Medium. The 200 + page
book is divided into sections on Online Selling Strategies,
Web Design and Navigation, Marketing Your Web Venture and
Building Serious Traffic, Secrets to Search Engine Success,
and Affiliate Marketing: The Ultimate Online Sales Force.
About the Author
Daniel Barnett, co-author of Work the Medium, a 200+
page manual of Internet Marketing, Promotion and Selling Strategies:
http://www.workthemedium.com