They say
eyes are window to soul. Your website then is window to your business. What would a passerby think of your "window"? What does your website say about you? About your business?Does your website entice visitor to pause and take a few moments to look around or does it confuse them so much they click past it without ever looking back.
The goal of your website is to make visitor stay until desired visitor response has been achieved. That might be that they sign up for your newsletter, complete a survey or make a purchase. If surfer doesn't stay for more than a few moments then all your hard work is for nothing.
There are 8 key factors that can prevent people from staying on your site. In extreme cases key areas below can actually drive traffic away from your site.
Sin #1 Provide Useful Content. People search for information online. To find that information they use search engines. They type in keywords or phrases to locate items, places or information they require or desire. Google, Yahoo and MSN go through their indexes and present searcher with best possible match for their information request. The searcher clicks on links and visits a few sites.
What happens if searcher doesn't find relevant information once they get to site? Yup they go right back to their previous search results and go elsewhere.
Provide useful content. Don't scam search engines. Don't churn out another site made up of copied search engine results. Your website is your business. Treat it like one.
The two key rules for website content are:
1. Make it useful.
2. Make it easy to find on your site
Sin #2 Slow Loading Sites If your site takes any longer than 30 seconds to load then visitor is gone. Theywon't be back either.
Ideally your website should load in 15 seconds or less. Web surfers will not wait around for your fancy graphics or flash demos to load. They'll get bored and move on.
Do not use bitmap graphic files for logos or as part of your site design. They're ugly and take forever to load.
Ensure that every single GIF and JPEG is optimized for faster loading. If you don't understand how to optimize graphic files for your site ask somebody to do it for you. It can cut your site loading time by 50%.
Keep your site to 20% graphics and 80% text. Text loads faster and gives web surfer something to read while your graphics are quickly loading in background. Look at some of most successful websites on net - Google, Yahoo and Amazon. Graphically intensive? bsolutely not. These guys realize that every second they waste and visitor they lose is money out of their pocket.
