6 "Must" Website Conveniences
By: Phil Grisolia
For anyone who manages a website -- whether for a business, or for yourself – there are six conveniences site visitors have now come to expect. If you don’t provide them, your site’s traffic is sure to decline.
Of the 18 billion web pages said to be floating around out in cyberspace – yes, that’s with a “B” – many the result of more than 16 million abandoned websites – it’s obvious more than one website failed to meet its visitors’ expectations.
Oh, I’m sorry. Did you think the purpose of your website was to satisfy some business or personal need of yours? Wrong! It’s all about the visitor – the customer – what he or she is looking for, what they expect – what they demand!
Yes, demand. Fail to provide at least the following minimum conveniences, and the parade away from your site will begin immediately.
1. Download times of no more than three seconds: It used to be eight, but Web users have apparently become impatient. Oh, and it shouldn’t take them more than three clicks to find what they want on your site. Huge graphics can slow the loading. So can frames. (Anyone use ‘em any more?) So do sound, Flash and all those other rarely necessary visual and auditory lollypops designers want to add and content writers hate.
2. Content that’s brief, to the point, but that answers visitors’ questions: Content, after all, is king – though not in a vacuum. Don’t use body type smaller than 12 point. Do use short sentences – eight to 10 words – short paragraphs – three to four sentences – and “bulleted” content wherever possible. People seem to dislike reading, at least reading from a monitor.
3. Color and design that contributes to the overall feel and tone of the site – that make the visitor feel comfortable – are also important: But minimize the eye candy. Graphics should be functional, not distracting.
4. Don’t force visitors to scroll left and right: That’s a No-No. Up and down is acceptable – though not endlessly – but left and right kills interest. Besides, no line of copy should be wider than 6.5 inches. Shorter is better.
5. Give visitors a “Print” option: But make sure what they’ll print fits portrait-style on standard paper, preferably with 1” margins left and right. Never force your visitors to change their print options. They resent being required – they consider it being forced – to do anything. Blame ‘em?
6. “Email this Page” is another of today’s expectations: When visitors find something of interest, they often feel an uncontrollable urge to share it with people of like mind. Make sharing easy for ‘em.
Not on any “Visitors’ Wish List,” but always on mine for sites I’m associated with, keep content fresh, updated at least quarterly. Preferably monthly. For some clients we do it weekly. But that depends on what’s being offered to whom and why. Rare are visitors who come back to sites looking for content they’ve seen.
© 2006, Philip A. Grisolia, CBC
Phil Grisolia is an award-winning copywriter, an author, business coach, and educator. To learn more about Phil and the help he provides for his small-business clients, visit him at http://PhilGrisolia.com . While there, be sure to sign up for a free subscription to his best-in-class newsletter – Making Sense of Marketing™ - and learn how you can request a free, no-obligation analysis of your firm’s web marketing efforts.