7 Warning Signs of a Bad Website
mkLINK Internet Marketing Tips(Friday 1 December 2006)

1) Selling To Everyone Means You Sell to No One
The best websites offer niche products or services. Unless you are a huge trading
site such as Amazon or Tesco's - then selling to everyone will diminish your
position, relevancy and you will have to compete on price. Know your market and
sell specifically to them.

2) Huge (Un-necessary)Graphics
Remember that you have 8 seconds to get the visitor to engage with the site.
Large graphic files will take up bandwidth, cause the site to be slow, generally
unimpress people and reduce your conversion rate in the process. Optimise the
images to be as small as possible. Only use large images if the site needs it
- e.g. if you are selling aerial photographs!

3) You are Visitor No. '###'
These page counters - visible to the whole world - look awful and instantly tell
visitors that the site is created by a beginner. At the very least they look as if you
are trying to show off and if your site doesn't get many visitors- then you're just
going to look even more silly. Would Google or Ebay show how many people have
visited their site today - with a little counter?

4) To see this Properly, Please Download the following...
Unless you absolutely have to(e.g. if you are an estate agent offering virtual tours
or an online music store) avoid these at all costs. People absolutely hate having to
download a bit of software just to see your site - don't do it.

5) No Obvious Contact Details - or Where to Sign Up
It has been shown time and time again that if people cannot easily find your
contact details, people will leave. These are people that you have ultimately paid
to visit your site, so you are throwing good cash away if you do not give them
what they want.

6) Music/Sound that can't be turned off.
This can be infuriating - especially if people are accessing your site from work!
At the very least, offer a button to click enabling/disabling the sound function.
(If it helps - I made this mistake for years!)

7) Lots of Distracting Adverts & Pop-Ups
Your visitors are at your site to research the information they need to make a
decision about your company. Lots of ads or pop-ups detract from this. Whilst
'Hover-Ads'(Different to pop-ups) can have a serious impact on your conversion
rate - only use them sparingly. Keep ads to a bare minimum.

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