1. Flash Driven Design Search engines hate Flash driven design. In fact they hate them so much that they will completely ignore your site no matter how pretty you think that it looks. So what if it is clever and it contains beautiful state of the art design? Nobody is ever going to see it. Google is just going to skip right past your site as if you are the invisible man. And those millions of iPhone and iPad users who use their mobile devices instead of their desktops certainly won’t see it because they can’t see Flash on their phones. It is pointless to annoy Google so much it chooses to ignore you. It’s YOU that won’t get any visitors. Just because you can add whistles and bells doesn’t mean that you should.
2 .The Annoying “Welcome to our website” How long do you think you have to grab your visitor’s attention? Here’s a hint: It isn’t 2 minutes, 1 minute or even 30 seconds. It is more like 10 seconds. That is all the time you have, so don’t waste it with such a boring introduction.Most people don’t like to read much on the online, so when they first visit your website they are probably just going to quickly scan it to see if anything catches their eye. Why would you want to squander an already tiny attention span by reminding people which site they are visiting? Instead, use an attention grabbing headline?
3. “We.... We... We... We... We...zzzzzzzz” “We have a team of....” “We plan to....” “We have been in business for.....”
Sorry to sound blunt but. . . NOBODY CARES! Visitors to your website are only interested in one thing: What is in it for ME?” If your site doesn’t answer this question pretty quickly they will leave. Instead of just talking about you and your site or your business, imagine that you are talking one to one with one of your typical customers and ‘speak’ to them as an individual. Tell them how your product or service is going to benefit them.
4. Teach Speak Every industry and business sector has its own teach speak and industry only words that nobody else understands. Try talking to friends and family about Autoresponders, SEO and long tail keywords and you’ll see their eyes glaze over as they slip into a coma. If you use words, terms and phrases that mean something to you but go straight over your visitor’s heads, then you are going to lose them. We’ve already said visitors are going to scan over much of the content on your website anyway, so it makes sense to make it as easy as possible for them to be able to pick out and understand the main points from the bits that they do read.
5 .No Clear Call to Action As well as telling your visitors “what is in it for them”, your next job is to tell them what they need to do now.It is absolutely pointless giving them great reasons why they
