Tag Archive | "how to"

4 Easy Ways to Dissatisfy Your Visitors (by Stoney deGeyter)

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Since creating a website that is “user friendly” is often difficult and time consuming, I thought it would be fun to explore a few ways to create a dissatisfying user experience on your website. Unlike the dozens upon dozens of things that go into creating a website that provides a positive visitor experience, one that creates an atmosphere of trust and is likely to improve conversion rates, creating a dissatisfying experience can be done fairly easily in just a few steps.

In fact, while I’m sure there are just as many things that can derail a visitor on a website, there is no need to implement more than a few.We have found that any one of the four things listed below will do the trick!

Not able to find specific information

Visitors come to your site for a reason. Maybe they are researching a topic, seeking to gain information, or are comparing differences between your offerings and a competitor’s. In any case, your visitors are often searching for something specific, and maybe they even want to take action once they have the vital pieces of information they seek. Maybe that information is product specifications, pricing info, or perhaps just a phone or email address. Do what you can to hide this important information. Be sure to provide only basic, general information about your topic, product or services and avoid any decision clinching specifics.

If you feel you absolutely must provide more information, make sure that it is buried in the midst of a lot of text or that any links to this information is difficult to find. Nothing says we hate you like hiding important details or contact information!

Confusing website

People are easily confused, which makes this an easy task to accomplish. Don’t waste much energy thinking about things such as layout, design or

navigational consistency. When developing your content, speak in broad vague terms and use as much industry technobabble as possible. Don’t worry about website architecture either, that’s just a huge time-consuming task that ultimately prevents your visitors from having to do any real work to get the information they need. If you make it all too easy, then your visitors won’t feel that your information is valuable.

Slow website

If you happen to have a lightning fast server you might want to find a new one. You’re probably paying too much for hosting anyway. But if switching hosts is too much of a problem, and then see what you can do to slow it down. You can do this quite easily by using poorly implemented code, excessive code bloat or extremely large images. Add lots of flashy tools and multimedia that must be used such as flash based websites that have to download the full file first.

Since many metrics services look at time spent on a website as an indicator of a site’s overall value, the more you slow things down the better things look. Slow sites mean visitors must remain on the site longer just to get the information they need. This can be a boon to advertising.

Broken Links

Nothing tells your visitors that you care than handfuls of broken links on your site. I suggest you change URLs frequently and that you don’t perform monthly broken link checks. This is actually entertaining to your visitors because broken links create something of a game. And who doesn’t love a good game of hide and seek, right?

There you have it, four quick and easy ways to dissatisfy your customers. The great thing about these is that you don’t have to think to hard about any of them. In fact, they require hardly any thought at all. When I think about how best to go about creating this kind of unusable environment two words come to mind, random and haphazard. Not only are those both fun words, but they make for a fun website.

source : http://www.isedb.com/db/articles/1824/1/4-Easy-Ways-to-Dissatisfy-Your-Visitors/Page1.html

How to Make Search Engines Happy in 3 Easy Steps

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1) Follow the Search Engine Guidelines

Nearly all search engines publish their own guidelines regarding the submission of sites, the type of sites they will accept and recommendations for optimized content. Google recently updated their Webmaster Guidelines which cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative search engine behavior that they consider to be “spam”. They also published SEO Guidelines - advice for webmasters to heed when choosing an SEO. Google was the first search engine to publicly acknowledge search engine optimizers in this fashion.

It’s not just Google publishing anti-spam guidelines. You’ll find them at the following search engine sites as well:

- MSN Search webmaster guidelines

- AltaVista terms of use (AltaVista is a Yahoo-owned company)

- Yahoo terms of service

- Yahoo guidelines on search engine spam (covering AltaVista and AllTheWeb as well)

- Yahoo definitions of search engine spam (covering AltaVista and AllTheWeb as well)

- Yahoo content guidelines

- AskJeeves / Teoma terms of service and spam policy

- AskJeeves / Teoma editorial guidelines

2) Avoid Spamming the Search Engines

Often, webmasters will use search engine spam techniques without even being aware that they are doing so. Or worse, web designers can - advertently or inadvertently - integrate techniques that could cause a site to be penalized in the site’s rankings in one or more engines, without the site owner’s knowledge of such penalties. The key to avoiding spamming the engines is research.
Keep track of the various search engine guidelines via the links above. Watch for any changes they make to these guidelines and tweak your site accordingly. Trawl the various webmaster and search engine forums regularly to ensure your site doesn’t use any of the latest methods that appear to be penalized. If you suspect your site has been penalized, remove the offending content, contact the engine concerned and ask to be reinstated.

Google actually encourage you to file a re-inclusion request via their Help Center and this post by Google staffer Matt Cutts outlines what should be included.

Alternatively, here is a sample email template you can use instead:

—————————————————-
Sample Re-inclusion Request Email:

Dear [search engine name],

I am the owner of [your site URL].

I did not realize that participation in [spammy method] and
[spammy SEO name] programs could cause problems for my website. I was
assured that these techniques were search-engine-friendly by [your source for using spammy method].

I now understand that the practices used are not acceptable. I apologize for having allowed them to be placed on my website. I’ve removed the questionable pages and links from the site. I promise not to repeat such mistakes.

I am asking you to please consider reinstating my website,
[your site URL] into the [search engine name] Index.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]
————————————————–

To assist them to provide a high quality service, search engines encourage people to report search results they are dissatisfied with. If you spot some content spam or techniques that are clearly in breach of the search engine’s public guidelines, you can report it using these links:

- Google spam report or via search-quality@google.com

- AllTheWeb relevancy problem report (AllTheWeb is a Yahoo-owned company)

- AltaVista search results manipulation report (or via Yahoo’s spam report below)

- Yahoo spam report

- AskJeeves spam report or via information@ask.com

3) Build Sites for Visitors Rather than Search Engines

The methodologies may have changed over the years, but the same principles have always applied to “good” or “white hat” SEO. Build sites for humans, not search engines. Make the site as user friendly as possible, avoid the bells and whistles and include high quality, relevant content.

Wherever possible, include text-based content and navigation menus with simple, descriptive, well-written copy designed to convert your visitors into customers. Include keywords and phrases your audience would logically type in to search engines to find sites like yours. Only link to sites that are relevant to your target audience and spend some time on usability, making sure all your forms and shopping carts work.

Remember that what pleases a visitor is almost always what pleases a search engine too.

Author Kalena Jordan

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