Website turn-offs
Oct 15, 2014 — TrackFive

10 Website Turn-Offs That Could Be Hurting You

Have you ever visited a website and before it even fully loads been completely turned-off by it? Sometimes so badly that you never want to visit it again? It might seem like common sense to make your websites appealing to visitors. However, you may be missing out on click opportunities because you are using some of these tactics.

Typically, the webmaster/company/brand thinks all aspects of the website are “user friendly” or will “attract visitors.” However, what if most of the aspects of your website are complete disconnects between your intent and the expectations of the site visitors and you aren’t even realizing it?!

10 Website Turn-Offs That Could Be Hurting You

Quite frequently some of the tactics the website developers think of might actually be hurting your brand/company/business’s online marketing. Some of the most typical webmaster insights might be:

  • “All of my competitors use this, so it must be working.”
  • “We don’t want to distract people with any links on our landing page.”
  • “Let’s keep our social feeds live even though we don’t post routinely.”
  • “Talking or animated avatars will help set us apart from the competition.”
  • “What’s the harm in anything that is auto-play?”
  • “Nobody cares about our press releases, so let’s not waste time updating our accomplishments.”

Before mentioning anything else, these common thoughts among webmaster’s MUST STOP it’s only making your site look discreditable and out of date!

Aside from the most common website turn-off, a sloooow loading site, here’s a list of some of the other noted popular website turn-offs– a.k.a tactics you should avoid:

1. Automatic background music. Maybe the song you chose to automatically start playing on your website is a top hit, but it is important to keep in mind that not everybody is going to like that song. You definitely don’t want to turn a visitor away from your site simply because you have chosen background noise.

2. Screen resolutions set too widely. Probably one of the most annoying things to site visitors is consistently having to adjust a page before you even begin clicking around. Make things more manageable and set table widths as a percentage of screen width!

3. Limiting contact to E-mail only. Contacting a brand,company or business by E-mail is probably the most popular, however some visitors would prefer to TALK to someone. Provide a phone number or other option along with E-mail for more interaction among users.

4. E-mail address username. If your website requires a username, make it so that visitors can simply make their E-mail address their log in information. Most people can’t remember usernames but can easily remember their E-mail addresses– it just makes things more convenient.

5. Cliche clip art images. If your site is full of popular images that every other site has, then it’s just going to show that the owner of the site is not creative. Spice it up a bit, use images you take yourself (professionally) or download images from sites such as iStock, PhotoXpress or 123rf.

6. No new blogs. If you are going to keep your social feeds active, it’s important to also keep up with your blog posts routinely. You can do once a day, once a week or even once every two weeks–whatever you decide, just make sure they are consistently coming in. Nobody wants to look at old posts, and not staying updated could give your audience the wrong attitude and make them think you don’t care or ran out of things to say (both are not good).

7. Automatic talking avatars. Just like the music thing above, talking avatars are NEVER not annoying. They might set you apart from competition, but usually not in a good way. The same concept goes for anything that is set to auto-play. Generally, visitors will just reach for their “mute” button.

8. Not keeping up with press releases. Webmaster’s may think that site users don’t pay attention to these areas in particularly, however not keeping them updated can make people think your company hasn’t done anything noteworthy in quite some time.

9. Ridiculously large graphic files. Sometimes huge graphic files take a longer time to load. If using, please optimize the reduce the file size in order to minimize the time it takes to load.

10. Excessively long content. Generally, pages should be limited to three scrolls. Keep in mind that people usually just scan the website content until they find the page they are looking for anyway.

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  1. Richard Balsillie says

    How about these?

    1. Message forms that do not allow the sender to have a copy sent to their own email address: therefore thry have no record of what they send.

    2. On-line questionnaire forms that do not allow the viewer to preview the full list of questions before they decide to participate. I often see forms where after starting, I find question that I cannot or are not prepared to answer. Previews also allow the willing participant to gather the necessary information before commencing.

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