Wednesday, August 27th 2008, by Adam Barger

1. Not making it clear what the site is all about.

On average when a person visits your site you have about seven seconds to help them understand what your site is all about. If someone comes to your site and they have to read through a couple of paragraphs before getting to the point you can forget about it. That person will leave your site and probably never come back.

Create a clear and concise headline that states exactly what your website is all about and place it near the top of your page. When people read they start at the top left of a page and then read left to right. So it's preferable to have your headline start somewhere near the top left hand corner of your page.

2. Text is an unreadable font, color, or both.

Okay, I know how awesome it is to make your own custom glitter text and I understand your favorite color is purple but let me tell you. There is a ton of information on the internet and the average person will only spend a few seconds on your site unless you can get him/her engaged. Don't make it more difficult for them by getting overly creative with your fonts.

Pick fonts and font colors that are easy to read. This means fonts like arial, times new roman, and veranda. When it comes to text color, try choosing colors with a stark contrast. The very easiest colors are black text on a white background or white text on a black background. Never use yellow as a text color.

3. Making your contact information hard to find.

The web is a terrific place to get new business but chances are in order to land turn your site visitors into paying customers you're going to have to talk to them on the phone. Don't make your contact information a mystery. Put your phone number in a large, easy to read font on every page of your website. This includes the homepage.

4. Not telling the customer what to do next.

So the customer knows who you are and what you're all about. They like what they see but don't know what to do next. Don't expect them to figure it out on their own. Tell them. To do this properly you will have to figure out what the goal of your web page is. If your goal is to get a potential prospect on the phone, then tell them to call you. If your goal is to sell a product, then tell them how they can add the product to their shopping cart.

I like using statements like "Click Here To Continue" or "But It Now". Whatever the action is that you would like a site visitor to take you need to tell them and tell them in a clear, direct, way.

5. Not adding a page title.

Don't confuse this with your headline. A headline is the statement located near the top left corner of your page that tells what your site is all about. The page title is the text that appears in the very far top left corner of any browser window. Your page title is especially important because it's one of the most important ways a search engine determines what your web page is about. Typically you'll want to give you page titles that describe what's included on the page.