Top 10 Website Mistakes: Are YOU Making Them?
Author: © 2005 Karyn Greenstreet
Although personal and business Web
sites have been in
existence for more than 10 years, I'm still seeing small
business owners make the same mistakes on their Web sites.
Here's a list of the ones that will drive people away from
your site and cause you to lose business (and your reputation
as a professional business person).
1. "Under construction" signs on your site. Web
sites are
intended to be Living Documents. They are supposed to
change and grow. Putting an "under construction" sign
on your Web site marks you as an amateur. If your site
isn't ready to show to the public, don't publish it to
a public location.
2. Visitor counters. Visitors generally don't care how
many other people have visited your site. If the
visitor counter shows a low number, that can be a
psychological turn-off to people; if it's too high,
people might believe that you've forged the number.
Take the visitor counter off your site and use your
website statistics to get a more accurate assessment of
the people visiting your site. If your hosting company
doesn't provide good statistics, get a new one. Check
out our article on how to choose a hosting company:
http://www.passionforbusiness.com/articles/choosing-hosting.htm
3. Lack of copyright statements. Everything you write,
and your Web site design itself, is copyright-able.
Make sure you include copyright statements on every
page, and update the year in the copyright statement as
appropriate. Nothing screams "not-up-to-date" like
having a copyright statement from 1997 on your site.
4. Overuse of technology. There are some really great,
cool and wild techie things you can program into your
website. But if they are going to distract the visitor
from your message, or if they're going to slow down the
loading of your page, ditch the extra technology in
favor of simplicity. This includes large Flash shows
when your site opens, animated graphics and other large
graphics, as well as scrolling text and audio that
comes on as soon as the person hits your website.
Recent surveys show that people crave simplicity and
easy navigation in sites.
5. Passive verbs. Use active verbs and active sentences
when writing your site's copy. Active verbs are
powerful and lend energy to your site. Need to brush up
on using active verbs? Check out this site:
http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/passive.htm
6. Long sentences. When people read long sentences, they
have to keep the first part of the sentence in their
mind when reading the last part. People are easily
distracted. Help your visitors by keeping your
sentences short and crisp.
7. Long pages. Studies show that most people will not read
a long page of text off of their computer monitor.
They'll either print it or they'll scan it looking for
major topics and bullet points. Keep your pages short.
If you have a lot to say, consider creating a series of
pages that explain your topic, with good navigation
between each page. Also, since people DO print web
pages to read later, make sure your contact information
is at the bottom of each page.
8. Not identifying the benefits of your products or
services. People make purchases for two reasons: to get
rid of pain or to get pleasure. People want to know
how your products and services will help them with
their specific pain/pleasure situation. Instead of
telling them that your widgets are made from steel and
are 3 inches across, tell them that your widgets will
stop their faucets from leaking for a lifetime.
9. Forgetting to ask the visitor to do something. In marketing, this is known as a Call To Action. Tell
your visitors what you want them to do next. Sign up
for my newsletter. Call me. Order today.
10. Believing in "build it and they will come." It might have worked in the movie Field Of Dreams, but the
reality of Internet marketing is: build it, MARKET it,
and they will come. Once you've built your website you
have to tell people about it. Think of your website
the same way you'd think of a box of marketing
brochures: if you don't get them into the hands of
people, they're not worth the money you spent to create
them.
© 2005 Karyn Greenstreet.
Karyn Greenstreet is a self-employment expert and small
business coach. She shares tips, techniques and strategies
with self-employed people to maintain motivation, stay
focused, prioritize tasks, and increase revenue and profits.
Visit her website at www.PassionForBusiness.com
I started looking for viable work at home opportunities back
in 2001. It was a time consuming process, but in retrospect, I give myself a pat
on the back every month when I cash the check from my home based business. The
purpose of this article is to perhaps help others make their selection with a
little less time and effort than I had to expend.
Having spent many years running traditional "bricks and
mortar" type businesses, I didn't buy for one second the numerous heavily hyped,
or worse yet, scam operations that touted the instant and fantastic riches that
could be achieved (often with little or no effort required). While doing my
research as to which business I would eventually pursue, this type of claim
became an instant trigger for me to move on to check out some other
"opportunity".
I mean, give me a break, if those claims were close to being
true, why would they share their "secret" with anyone else? They would just
execute their "magic system" and in short order would have made all the money
that exists in the world...yeah, right!
In the course of my investigations, a few other natural
filters surfaced to help me narrow down the realistic and legitimate
opportunities from among the far too numerous unfounded offers. Early on, I
determined that the "get in on the ground floor" offers were essentially smoke.
After all, if I wanted to take a chance on the lottery, I would have purchased a
ticket. Because of my business management experience, it soon became clear to me
that three of the primary factors that would influence my choice would be:
-
successful longevity (how long has this particular company
been successfully doing business?)
-
reasonable income expectations touted by the top management
of the company offering the opportunity.
-
support systems and training resources available to help
the participants succeed.
One thing that really struck home with me was a statement
made by the founder of the company that I eventually selected for my home based
business. It went something like the following:
"Hardly a day goes by that I don't hear from an affiliate
questioning why he or she is not seeing a big check yet. More times than not,
the person asking hasn't even been involved for more than 90 days and is only
barely beginning to even understand how the whole system works. And frankly,
even if the number was six months, it's still much too early to be expecting a
significant income stream to have developed.
I always say that if you're not willing to give a business at
least a year, don't even bother getting involved. You need to understand that it
takes time to get to know all the nuances of the compensation plan. It takes
time to determine which products you want to lead with. It takes time to develop
a game plan. It takes time to figure out what marketing activities deliver the
biggest bang for the buck. Anything worthwhile takes sustained effort. If you're
not thinking long term, you've set yourself up for failure."
To sum it up, the selection process should focus on reality
(there is no "magic" in home based businesses) and reject any so-called
"opportunities" that seem too good to be true.
Kirk Bannerman operates a successful home based business and
resides in California. For more details, visit his website at
