Small,Business,amp,#58,Does,Yo DIY Small Business Q & A: Does Your Website Induce

When starting a new work at home business it is very easy to become consumed by it. We spend so much time trying to get the business up and running that we may end up becoming burned out and lose our motivation. There is so much to learn and Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in

Q: We promote our web site in all our ad campaigns, but accordingto my website statistics program, we are getting very few visitorswho click past the first page. The site has a cool Flash intropage that the designer said would impress visitors, but it doesn'tseem to be working. What can we do to get people to spend moretime on the site? -- Christopher O.A: The first thing you should do, Christopher, is find that designerand beat the living Flash out of him. It won't increase the timevisitors spend on your website, but it will make you feel betterafter you've read this column. What your designer thought would appeal to visitors is probablythe very thing that is driving them away. A Flash introductionpage (Macromedia Flash is a software program used to createanimations for Web pages) may seem "cool" to you, but from awebsite visitor's point of view, they can be about as appealingas sitting in the front row of a Pokemon movie with four hundredscreaming six year olds (and here comes the segue, folks).In December, 1997, during an episode of Pokemon, the popularJapanese TV cartoon that has spawned everything from movies toaction figures to lunch boxes, a scene featured a rocket explosionthat flashed red and blue lights in rapid succession. After theepisode, over 600 children were taken to hospitals complaining ofseizures, blurred vision, headaches, dizziness, and nausea. Anyadult who has ever been exposed to Pokemon for more than twoseconds can understand the nausea, but the seizures at firstbaffled doctors. Scientists ultimately came to attribute the massreaction to "photosensitive seizures," which are brought on byexposure to certain visual stimuli like rapidly flashing lightson a TV screen. Remember when your mom told you not to sit soclose to the TV or you'd ruin your eyes? Turns out she knew whatshe was talking about. Who knew?The event caused such concern that Japanese broadcasters and healthofficials met to discuss ways to prevent future occurrences ofbad-cartoon induced illnesses. They established guidelines forthe broadcast of flashing images: no image may flicker fasterthan three times per second; flashing images should be displayedfor no more than two seconds; and stripes, whorls, and concentriccircles should not take up the largest portion of a TV screen.It's my humble opinion that these rules should apply to websitesas well. I've been in the Internet design business for nearly adecade and I have been witness to numerous websites that couldinduce photosensitive seizures in blind moles. It sounds likeyour website might be suffering from a similar ailment. If visitor's are not clicking past your fancy Flash intro page,you don't have to be a genius to figure out that therein liesyour problem. Remove the Flash intro page for a few weeks tosee if your website's click-through rate improves and the numberof page views increase. "Click-through rate" refers to thenumber of visitors who click links on your homepage to go deeperinto your site. "Page views" refers to the overall number ofweb pages that were viewed by visitors. If click-through and page view rates improve, you'll know that the Flash intro was your problem.Here are a few other things you can do to make sure your site offers visitors a pleasant - and seizure free - browsing experience.Sit In The Visitor's ChairThe best way to make sure your website is as user friendly as it can be, is to sit down at a computer and approach your site from a typical visitor's point of view. Try to imagine that you are seeing the site for the first time. If you are unable to do this,have a friend who has never seen the site click around and offercomments while you take notes. Have your friend assess the following points: Is the site appealingto the eye? Are the colors pleasing and complimentary? Is thesite easy to navigate? Are the topical categories and subcategoriesin logical order? Is it easy to find what you're looking for? Does the site have a search engine to make finding things easier?Is every feature of the site less than two or three clicks away?If the answer to any or all of these points is no, you have somework to do. Don't Dictate TechnologyOne sure fire way to repel web site visitors is to require thatthey have special browser plug-ins or 3rd party add-on browsersoftware installed to view your site. Dictating that the userdownload and install software is not your place and users willresent you (and your business) for it. Visiting your siteshould be an effortless pleasure, not a technological chore.Don't Make Them WaitIf your homepage takes longer than 20 seconds to download (appearin the visitor's browser) you are losing visitors, period. Gratuitous animation, large graphics, poorly formatted HTML, bad page layout, and a number of other factors can increase download time. You might have the greatest web site in the world,but if it takes ten minutes to download no one will ever see it. The lessons to be learned, then, are threefold. One: a website should be designed to satisfy the visitor's needs, not to pacify the site designer's ego. Two: visitors to a business website are not there to be awed andentertained. They are there looking for information, and unlessyou give it to them quickly and effortlessly, they will goelsewhere to get it. And Three: for better mental and physical health avoid Pokemon at all costs.Here's to your success.Tim [email protected] For information on starting your own online or eBay business,visit http://www.dropshipwholesale.net Article Tags: Flash Intro