Thursday, 5 November 2009

If You Are Losing Visitors You Need To Know These 6 Website Design Mistakes

By Edward William

Websites can look amazing with lots of fun stuff and still be losing visitors. If your website is not holding the attention of visitors then the following 6 website design mistakes may be of help.

Of course you want your website to be successful and not only attract visitors but interest them in staying and even returning. Unfortunately, the amount of time that a visitor will spend on your website will be determined in the first few seconds of their visit. If there are one or more basic design mistakes then the visitor will leave quickly. In order to keep their attention your home page needs to build a relationship with the visitor that will keep them coming back.

The greatest design mistake is no doubt a lack of focus. When a website does not offer exactly what is promised in the keyword and title that drove the visitor there in the first place, the visitor loses interest and leaves quickly. The content must be relevant to the theme of the website and be interesting enough to encourage the visitor to look at more pages.

Pages that are heavy with text can be a turn-off to visitors. Reading text online is different from reading a newspaper. The paragraphs have to be set up so that the reading is instantly presenting the point of the information. There needs to be short paragraphs with headers and subheadings, bullets and numbering where possible, some graphics and pics where appropriate and correctly balanced white space. The information has to be spot on with the topic with no diversions or unnecessary additions. If anything on the page confuses the visitor, they will leave and not return.

The content must be readable and easy to view. Using backgrounds that drown out the font will not hold the attention of the visitor. Pages that take too long to upload will also drive the visitor away. The kind of fonts used should be universal fonts that are clear and crisp like the Arial or the Verdana. If the fonts are odd or too fancy they may not even be visible on some computers. The fonts need to be those that are automatic with Windows.

Clutter is a big no no on any website. The contents can be nicely organized but if it is too busy with long text segments, unnecessary material, promotional offers, sales pitches and lots of animations then it is considered very noisy and very cluttered. This will discourage any visitor especially if it is the start-up page. This also makes the upload too slow.

Advertising on your website is certainly acceptable but overpowering ads are guaranteed to drive visitor away. Using the pop-up ads or messages is still a common practice but the problem is that most people block these so they will not see yours and if they do they may be irritated by them. This will not build a good relationship with your visitor.

If you website is done well and has not made any of the mistakes we have discussed but the navigation is messed up you will lose your visitors. The use of a site map will make your pages easier to navigate so that your visitor an see in a moment where they want to go next. A happy visitor is one that will return.

About the Author:

No comments:

Post a Comment