Many organizations create websites with the goal of generating high volumes of traffic and converting this traffic into profitable leads.  Nowadays, website visionaries concentrate on the “online customer experience” and spend big dollars ensuring that interface design and usability are topnotch and stand out from the crowd.

I have been perusing the web trying to populate a list of user-friendly, well-designed, effective websites and found many interesting approaches.  Oddly enough, I found that a staggering number of websites have some sort of faux pas that will cause visitors to say “Wow…that’s annoying…I will never, ever come back to this website again.” So, instead of a list of “Do’s”, here is a short list of practices that will surely repel potentially profitable online leads.

Implement a fancy flash page

• Have you ever visited a website with a blockbuster flash video introducing you to the business?   Many visitors, especially technically savvy ones, will view flash start pages as haughty and “showoff-y”.  This fact is exacerbated if the visitor isn’t presented a visible “skip this epic flash page” button.  Flash pages generally take a long time to load (by internet standards) and experts say that after 10 seconds of waiting, 50% will take flight and leave your website – possibly forever.

80% Banner Ads, 20% Content

• Banner advertisements are a classic staple in E-commerce and can serve as a viable revenue stream.  The problem is many visitors view banner ads on websites as they view spam in their emails; an annoyance that they can do without wherever possible.  Here is my advice; keep the population and size of banner ads small, ensure that a proper design is in place to hold these banner advertisements.  A user visiting your website is most likely looking for something specific; try to keep the banners advertisements on your site inline with your content, product or service.

A never ending page

• I recently visited a website that utilized an interesting structural layout – 1 page, no navigation.  If using the ‘Find’ tool in your favorite browser is something you enjoy, this page is for you.  For the rest of the world, scrolling down the page is not only time consuming (and hard on your mouse-finger), it is a sure-fire way to force visitors out the door and mitigates SEO efforts.  My advice? Keep things short and sweet, implement user-friendly navigation and keep content containing keywords near the top of the page to maximize search engine spiders’ ability to find your keywords and maximize SEO efforts.

Pop-up! Pop-up! Pop-up!…..Pop-up!!!

• Have you ever been to a site that won’t let you leave?  A site that barrages you with flashy and trashy pop ups upon entry and while exploring the site?   This is a great way to maximize frustration and minimize return visits.  My advice is to avoid pop-ups completely.

Of course this list is limited but does outline a few key things to remember when developing an online marketing or E-commerce strategy.  Remember, make things easy, hassle free and provide valuable content, services or products and visitors will come back for more.