I've been a member of an online Moms' Marketing group since 2000 and I can remember several times the subject has come up: "What would cause you to leave a website." It actually came up again about a month and a half ago and I saved the results email and thought I'd share some information from it here.

Slow page/picture loading
This is probably a number one reason no matter what kind of site. It's important that you have someone who has never seen your page, test it for loading speed. It may load great for you, but chances are, it's popping up fast because it's already cached for you. Also - very important - resize your images for your sight using a graphics program and do not depend on html code to do this for you. I've seen 1" x 2" photos load extremely slow and when I right click and view the image, it's so huge I can see the fine details of someone's nostril hair.

Background Music
There are almost no reasons a VA site should have background music, unless maybe your niche market is the music industry.

Difficult to Navigate or Navigation not Easily Found
This one originally was Difficult to Navigate or No Navigation
but I found it too hard to believe that a site would have no navigation. However, if your navigation is only in the form of a java script drop down menu or flash, it could possibly appear to some that you have no navigation. You must account for those who have java scripts turned off and offer alternative navigation.

No Contact Info/No Whois Info
People often lose trust in a site having no contact information available. It can be a bit different for VAs because we don't typically take money/financial information up front and, therefore, have the ability to personally offer our contact information to potential clients offsite. However, some of us draw the line with the Whois database. I'm extremely skeptical of businesses owners who cloak their identity in the Whois using Domains by Proxy or something similar. If it's a blog, no problem, cloak away. If it's your business, privatizing your identity takes away from your legitimacy. If you're concerned about having your home address in the Whois database, it might be time to think about getting an offsite address (PO Box, etc.)

Poor Spelling and Grammar
This speaks for itself, especially in our industry.

Obnoxious Colors
This may seem silly, but I've HAD to leave sites because I felt like the colors were assaulting my eyes.

Flashing Animated Images
When I read this one, I assumed it referred to continuous animation or flash that directs your eye away from important information. A site can be more engaging with a bit of tasteful flash animation.

Too Many Clicks to Find the Information Needed
Set up your navigation so the most important information is easily gotten to from your front page. Navigation should be as logical as possible. Your best bet is to offer a complete site map that is linked from your first page.

Insecure Forms that Ask for Financial Information
This may not be a concern for us because most of us will invoice and ask for financial information offsite but it's important to always create secure forms if you require financial information, Social Security or Employer ID numbers, etc.

Amateurish Site
I think this subject has been talked about in some form or another here and needs not explanation.

Site Doesn't Work at all in My Browser of Choice
While a majority of internet users use some form of Internet Explorer (53.1%), it's vitally important to realize that 46.9% of people are using something else! At the very least, download Firefox, which now has a 37% share, and test your site in both Internet Explorer and Firefox. If it works well in those two, at least you're looking good for 83% of potential visitors.

Centered Text
This is one that a lot of people don't think about. It's not referring to titles but to vast amounts of text centered on a page. It's difficult to read especially for those with even slight dyslexia.

Website Hosted Free
Rather than discuss why hosting free would be a problem, I will mention that having a paid-hosted site lends legitimacy and permanence to your business.

There were several other items listed by the group but they concerned commerce sites. I can list those separately if anyone is interested. I'd love to hear if any of you have additions to this list or comments.

Please share!

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Jeanne
NowAssistingYou.com
Virtual Assistant :: Web/Blog Design & Hosting :: Writer

Thanks. This is a great list. When I was a real estate ageent I never put music on my page because I thought if people were looking at it at work they would close it very fast.

Lis a

I agree great list. I am going to print it out and send to some friends to "grade" my website (which is going to be an ongoing project.)

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-Amanda
www.virtualsolutionsmadesimple.com

Jeanne, this list is great! It actually reminds me of my very first experience in creating a web page and I believe I did every single thing on this list on that page (including a centered image of my dog smack dab in the middle) Granted it was in 1995 when the WWW (at least for me) was on the verge of becoming mainstream.

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Darlene Victoria Gonzalez
The Voice & Vision Behind Your Business

Originally Posted by DarleneG.

Jeanne, this list is great! It actually reminds me of my very first experience in creating a web page and I believe I did every single thing on this list on that page (including a centered image of my dog smack dab in the middle) Granted it was in 1995 when the WWW (at least for me) was on the verge of becoming mainstream.

OH NO - stuff in 1995 doesn't count!! Don't forget the animated rainbow line and the time before we figured out how to make the background of graphics transparent. I know I had some "family" pages where I had a crinkled paper background and these white squares with images in the middle. Good times...good times...

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Jeanne
NowAssistingYou.com
Virtual Assistant :: Web/Blog Design & Hosting :: Writer

Jeanne,

Great list. I just recently had my website switched to a blog site. I think this will be a terrific checklist to refer back to when looking at the activity stats for my site. That way I can adjust accordingly.

Also, I agree about the color thing. When I was chosing colors for my logo, I had to steer the designer away from too bright colors. If a color makes your eyes water, perhaps it's not the best choice.

~Joni

Jeanne,

That is a great list of things to look out for when doing up a site.

Your number one on the list is my number one, I never wait longer than a few seconds for a site to open. Also music on a site - is a no no for me. I came across a site recently where on opening, a video started with a voice over, I had to turn it off each time but I needed some information from the site so I had to visit it a few times, it was "doing my head in".

I will be keeping this list for future reference.

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Vicky
www.c-vas.eu

I left one out that was often the subject of heated debate -

No Right Click Scripts
No Right Click Scripts are bad enough but when it also includes an insulting message that pops up upon right clicking that accuses the visitor of stealing, it's an invitation to leave quickly.

Often No Right Click Scripts are employed to keep visitors from copying images and content on a site, however, anyone who has a little knowledge is able to get around a No Right Click Script to copy images. It's basically an annoyance that keeps people from using all of the functions available on Right Click.

Personally, I use my right button to go back and was shocked at one site when a message popped up "YOU ARE BUSTED! Copying images is stealing!" I didn't stay to buy anything from that site. However, I did make a copy of the entire page and sent it to the site owner...just because I could.

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Jeanne
NowAssistingYou.com
Virtual Assistant :: Web/Blog Design & Hosting :: Writer

LMAO @ Jeanne!

The biggest one for me is music. IMO, there is no reason for ANY site, no matter what the topic, to have music that automatically starts. If you want music, fine. But give people the choice to stop it, don't force them to try to figure out how to stop it.

Another I would add are flash pages that have no *skip* option. There is nothing more annoying than sitting through a long flash intro multiple times.

Jeanne,
Your list was wonderful. I haven't started designing my web site yet but your list will be close at hand to refer to.
tks,
Donna