There are a number of things that cause a website visitor to like or dislike your website. A website visitor’s experience can make or break the likelihood of them doing business with you.

Things That Annoy Website Users

Hiding info

Have you noticed some sites hide contact details. Vodafone does this with the obvious intention of trying to avoid you calling them. This just annoys people as they struggle to find the details they want and this destroys goodwill. If the phone number was displayed more clearly they may get not only more sales but also people may take the time to figure out the issue themselves.

Making it difficult

The key is to not make the website visitor think. If they have to prepare content like photos in a special way they are less likely to use that website. Don’t make the person jump through hoops to get what you want them to do.

Unnecessary info. required

If you don’t absolutely need the info, don’t ask for it. Long contact forms and bad questions annoy people and they’re less likely to complete contact.

Annoying pop ups

Pop ups, flashing animation and splash pages / intro pages just bother people. Their trust in you will plummet.

Cheap site

If your site looks like it was built by a school kid, or is very amateurish, your credibility goes out the door. You look unprofessional and untrustworthy. If you can’t afford to market yourself properly, what will your products or services be like?

What people experience online they should experience when doing business with you. If they see that you’re cheap they’ll assume that your service and products are cheap and nasty too.

Things You should Do

Here are some:

• Make it easy for people to recover from errors
• Provide answers to common questions and objections
• Provide printable document options like PDFs
• Put the answers to the most important info above the fold
• None of the things in the ‘annoying things’ list 😉

Lastly, put yourself in the shoes of your website user – not what you want, but what they want. Give it to them and you’ll have a happy website user.