Oct 12

Written by:
2010/10/12 08:24 AM 

Have you ever wondered why so many people leave your blog or website never to return again? Ever wondered why so many of your visitors never stay long enough to read a single paragraph?

Well here are three reasons why I would not return to your site. Three reasons why I hate your site.

Too long to download

This is a big problem especially in South Africa and other broadband challenged countries. Here where broadband really means just faster than a modem, big sites, and flash sites take ages to download. With broadband costing so much, I don’t want to linger around waiting for a site to download.

Be careful with what you litter your site with. There are so many nice things to use to make your site looking good, interactive and just pleasant to read. But all these take time to download.

The biggest issues with download times are:

• Flash. Flash takes long to download. Use it sparingly and only when absolutely necessary.
• Large picture. Be mindful as to the size of the pictures you use. Pictures should enhance a web page, not take over the web page. Get a compromise between file size and quality.
• DNS Lookups. This is where you have objects on your webpage that need data and information not resizing locally to your server. Widgets, pictures, etc all take time to look-up on other servers and then download.

 

Horrible colour theme

So you like lime green on shocking pink. But who else does? I’ll tell you who. It’s all those people who actually stay longer than 3 seconds to get past the visual pain of your terrible web colours.

Don’t use all the colours of the rainbow. Use a maximum of three to four colours. Do some research on colour theory. Which colours go together.

Be mindful of contrast. Understand colour moods and what message they convey. You would be surprised how important colour is to a website. Get it wrong and you will drive visitors away faster than a rabid dog.

Nothing meaningful

Every time I come back to your blog or website I see the same old same old. You have nothing new, nothing fresh. Your content is stale, old and you have nothing inspiring to say.

Content is King. Good quality content is what keeps people on your site, and what brings them back over and over again.

Conclusion

So if you want me back to your site, you will have to make some changes. These are for the better.

Fix up the load time, start culling some things from your site. Change your colour theme, less is more. Then start producing more quality content.

What do you think? What kind of things do you hate on blogs or websites?

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