How Good Is Your Business' Website?

21/06/2011

Is your website a Derby or a Grand National?

By Lesley Morrissey, Writer

In the horse racing world the Derby is a flat race – a smooth ride to the finish line. The Grand National is a series of big obstacles where people fall off. So how many obstacles does your website have where visitors ‘fall off’?

- The first fence is the splash page which doesn’t usually connect with the visitor and often causes frustration – they’re off!

- Fence two is a page with no headline to get the reader interested. If they there’s no indication that your site will give them what...

...they’re looking for – they’re off.

- Fence three is moving images – things that keep distracting the reader who is trying to see if you can satisfy their needs. Two attempts is the most the average visitor will give you – then they’re off.

- Fence number four is too much information. If your page is cluttered with headlines, boxes of all colours, options, buttons and links most people will get serious overwhelm and opt for an easier ride.

- Fence five is talking about yourself. If everything is about what you do rather than what your reader gets, they’ll quickly lose interest. Use ‘You’ not ‘We’ and your people will stay on.

- Fence six is the navigation. How easy is it to get around your site? Keep it simple: a maximum of 10 menu tabs and just one menu to save confused people falling off.


- Fence seven is getting people from page to page – no call to action can result in people forgetting to make the jump and disappearing into the distance at a rapid rate.

- Fence eight is about reducing the height of the fence – when you ask them to do something make it easy for them... continued on page two >

 

 

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