October 2006

"Under construction" signs on your site. 
Websites are a Living Documents.  They continuously change and grow.  An “under construction” sign on your website marks you as an amateur.  If your site isn’t ready to show to the public, don’t publish it to a public location.

Visitor Counters. 
Visitors generally don’t care how many other people have visited your site.  A visitor counter showing a low number tells people it's not a popular or good site; 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 site is hosted through Lynks Web Services and you would like these statistics, let us know.)  

Lack of Copyright Statements. 
Everything you write, and your website 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 1999 on your site.

Overuse of technology.
There are some really great and funky 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, take out the extra technology in favor of simplicity.  Things to avoid are 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 prefer and appreciate simplicity and easy navigation in sites.

Use of Passive Verbs. 
Use active verbs and active sentences when writing your site’s copy.  Active verbs are strong and powerful and they lend energy to your site.

Long sentences. 
People are easily distracted. When people read long sentences, they have to keep the first part of the sentence in their mind when reading the last part.  Help your visitors by keeping your sentences short and crisp. Avoid long sections of text.

Long pages.
Studies show that most people will not read a long page/sections of text on their computer monitor.  They’ll either print it or they’ll scan it looking for major topics and bullet points.  Keep 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.

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 or services will help them with their specific pain/pleasure situation. For example: instead of telling them all about the latest technology you use for skin care, tell them about how your skin care services/products will make them feel and look younger, healthier.

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 Now!".  "Order today". are examples of calls to action.

Believing in “build it and they will come.” 
It may 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.