Website Design – Don’t Get Off On The Wrong Foot

There are several ways to greet your website visitors. Some greetings are more appropriate for first time visitors or new visitors. Some greeting are more appropriate for visitors who know your website well.

You can design your website to greet all of your visitors the right way.

But sometimes, in a rush to do other things, websites fail to greet anyone. In fact they actually get off on the wrong foot.

If you don’t pay attention your visitors may get the wrong first impression.

Here is a list of the things that you should avoid.

Keep Under Construction Under The Lid

This happens less often today.

Landing on a page that says “Under Construction” just does not make sense. This is something that is website specific.

A store may have a sign on it to say it’s closed.

It may have a locked door and a sign that says “Some Store Will Open Here Soon”.

But you don’t find stores open, letting you into an empty room, only then to tell you they are under construction.

A little bit of sense goes a long way, don’t promote what you don’t have.

Don’t Get Off On The Wrong Foot

Only slightly less annoying than “Under Construction” is landing on a website that does one of the following:

• Launches anything and everything – new windows with music, video, or those audio files that we can’t quite figure out how to shut off. There are people that surf the web in a busy office or with children sleeping in the next room. No need to sing or sell unless the person has the choice to opt-in. Yes, I’d love to hear how your product can make me millions before sunrise, so I will click that button.
• Resizes browser windows. Did you know that most people select the size of their browser window for a reason? It works for them. Don’t annoy people this way.
• Take away my toolbars. This is just as annoying as taking my glasses off while I am driving, at night, in the rain. Taking control away from your users is a sign that you don’t care about them.
• Use Flash wisely. There are occasions when Flash works. Make sure your Flash load times are 5 seconds or less for everyone.
• Reinvents navigation. Some sites use unfamiliar symbols to represent an item you can click. Unfortunately the new user has no clue what they have just landed on, and is unlikely to click through.
• Poor color combinations for text on the background. Do you k now why all the Microsoft products start with black text on a white background? Because it is easy to read and easy to print for everyone.

Check For Broken Links

Broken links are possibly more annoying than “Under Construction” because the website designer has not even made an effort to put up a blank page.

A broken link that lands on a good 404 page, one that gives instructions, links and options is a least one thing that can be done to protect your reputation as a website designer.

One way a website designer can make sure all links on his pages are valid is to install a Free Broken Link Checker and use it. This gives you an answer in minutes.

Avoid Advertisement Overkill

Almost any websites can benefit from generating a little revenue through advertising, but the truth is that no one wants to ONLY see your advertisements.

Ensure you have good looking advertisements and well placed. Advertisements can even be useful. At one time or another, your visitors leave your website. They may as well leave through an advertisement link.

Some website owners decide to lower the number and size of advertisements on their website and increase their advertisement revenue. This is possibly because the fewer links seem to be more appropriate links.

Steer Clear Of Blog Un-favorites

On a blog, owners will have a RSS feed button in one corner. Plus a spot to sign up for email updates. Plus a pop-up window that appears every day you visit the site, or worse case it pops up on every page you open.

Here is a short list of things that people don’t like to see on a blog:

• Too many popups
• Require a login to comment
• Require special plugins
• Annoying Animations

Greet Each Visitor In The Right Way

Greet your online visitors the same way as you would in person.

Be polite to people you have never seen before.

Be friendly to people you share things with. Recognize your friendship.

This is the best way to avoid getting off on the wrong foot.

Cindy King is a Cross-Cultural Marketer and International Sales Specialist, with over 25 years field experience in international business development. Find out about how Cindy can help you get international clients