Want to improve the sales or sign ups on your web site but your not sure what to change? Here are some of the pit falls that we have seen from the feedback that our list members provide when they visit customer's sites.
1) *Don't understand the words*
Your internet site is accessible from anywhere in the world. If you intend to sell internationally you need to make sure that the words you use are understood - and I don't mean the language - even if your reader understands English - words mean different things in different countries. An advertiser just this week used the word 'tipping' which in their case meant predicting sports results. One of the most common responses we saw from the people mailed (Soccer fans around the world) was 'what is tipping?' - the term common in one country was simply not used in many others.
2) *If you make an offer - make it genuine*
Don't have hidden conditions on your special offers. Here is one comment we received:
"why did they have to say the $40 bonus for new players was FREE- it's not total bonus and deposit , which is the same as nothin , in my view- but they lured us w/FREEFREEFREE"
"too bad they felt they had to mislead us - it's a good enough offer as it is without having to..."
You can see what happens - this site lost ALL credibility to these visitors. They felt cheated. It would have been better to offer NOTHING than to make an offer with hidden conditions.
3) *Pop up windows*
Don't, don't, DO NOT - use pop up windows or free sites that use pop up windows. On every site we mail with pop ups 50% of all 'disliked' comments simply say -
"the pop up window"
"Utterly annoying popups. If I wanted popups, I'd sign up with AOHell"
4) *Trust*
Another common complaint, and all too easy to get is:
"Didn't look trustworthy"
The slightest mistake can cost you the trust of a visitor. Spelling mistakes and broken links are the most common and easy to fix - but lots of others come up - poor design, offers that are TOO good, too slow to answer emails, hidden pricing - trust is extremely hard to win - but lost in an instant - and when you lose the trust you have lost the prospect.
5) *Complicated offers or instructions*
KISS - 'Keep it simple stupid' - always remember this one - as soon as it gets complicated you start to lose customers:
"instructions for bonus ... too many steps to remember"
6) *Slow loading pages*
If they never see your page - they will never become a customer:
"didn't have time to download at that time may go back later "
"loading time of pages"
"downloaded a little too slow and I use a cable modem"
"Went to the site but it wouldn't load properly, only about half the page came up."
7) *Tell it like it is*
Be upfront. Make sure visitors can find out everything they need to know (yeah, trust again...).
"Not enough information, clicked on several links to find out things but a full explanation was not forthcoming. Does not inspire confidence"
8) *Don't over sell*
If you try and make your offer sound too good, you will lose customers. Most people work by the maxim 'If it sounds too good to be true, then it isn't true' - and it's very easy in your enthusiasm for your product (or to sell your product) to do exactly that:
"Sounded too good to be true"
"too much act now stuff"
"This site has too much hype and appears to be too good to be true - so I wouldn't trust any of the claims."
9) *Don't be shy with your price"
A common complaint. If you don't put your price up front people wonder 'why not?', they wonder what you are hiding, why the price is not easy to find. Loss of trust again!
"no price until you get to the order form"
"what is the cost? Not clear."
10) *Links must work*
What does it say to visitors if your links don't work?
"When I clicked on "Products," I got a no such URL message."
"Products link did not work, website was poorly designed did not give me confidence in their sales management"
"First link didn't work"
11) *Get the image right!*
It's all very well being low cost - but a 'low cost' image will not help you!
"Seemed very low end. Would worry about purchasing w/credit card from iffy company"
12) *Make sure it's secure*
If your payment page IS NOT a secure page, a lot of potential customers will never purchase from you:
"on the secure page I got errors and no padlock"
13) *Selling something new - back up your claims!*
If you want to sell something new that people are unsure about, or may not believe - you must back up your claims!
"needs to be more stability of the product as in more proven medical research than just the opportunity to call a stranger."
"They don't have alot of information about exactly how the program works"
"On the initial page there is really no information on the product, and while you can go to the program site and testimonial site it would be nice to have a concise statement on the outset"
14) *You need a guarantee*
This one speaks for itself:
"No guarantee, does not get into details"
15) *Break up the text*
Many people complain about pages 'being too long'. What they usually mean is that the page is not *readable* (as you know from our site, we are not against long pages - but we hope that they are still easy to read!)
"large block of boring type, not broken up , but daunting to look at."
"To improve site, give more color, some visuals to enhance and MAKE you want to read"
"Too much writing together. Nothing to Break up the writing."
"format is horrible, too many words and not enough separated text"
16) *Is FREE always a good word to use?*
Don't UNDER value what you have to sell:
"The emphasis on the free demo, it makes it look cheap."
17) *'Bricks & Mortar' attitudes*
If you are adding a web site to an existing 'bricks & mortar' business there is a temptation to 'make the web site fit the way we do things'. Sorry guys, this doesn't work for most surfers.
"NO SECURITY, NO POLICIES, NO RATES, NO REAL INFO!!!!"
"No on-line answer - have to wait for phone calls."
"No way to negotiate or ..."
18) *Make the purpose of your site clear - QUICKLY*
Make sure people know what your site is about as quickly as possible - otherwise you can lose people who WOULD have been customers.
Example: A book review site - that lots of visitors thought was trying to sell them books.
"I will always buy my books from Amazon"
19) *How many people can't see your site properly?*
Check your site from as many browsers and platforms as possible. If you use a 1024x768 screen size on IE5 your site may look wonderful, but if most people visiting are using 800x600 and various browsers it may look awful. Try and offer a good experience to *the majority* of your customers:
"I had to scroll sideways to read it"
"the pages do not fit on screen"
"had to scroll sideways to see whole page"
Of course, the reverse is also true. We had a recent comment (which we acted on) from a visitor to the HTMail site - telling us that at resolutions over 1230 wide our background was repeating, and looked awful. We fixed it.
20) *Contact information*
Make sure your site has easy to find contact information if you want to build trust. If customers can't find a telephone number and address - they wonder what you are trying to hide. Trust again.
A recent comment on a customers site:
"Poor quality site. need rules and reg's .Who operates site/ no contact info. Why hide who/where EXACTLY you are? Is it legal? thats not my impression from your site."
Another example here is our own site. We have always had contact information on the site - at http://www.htmail.com/about.html - and we labelled the button 'About' on our main page (with an alt tag saying 'Company Information'). Over time however, it has become apparent that people were not able to find our company contact information very easily - so we have now changed the name of the button to 'Company' rather than 'About'. Let us know if you don't think that's clear enough!
Dave Broadway
September 2000
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