Is Your Website Annoying People?

When it comes to the internet, most people have a short attention span and a short fuse. If your website frustrates viewers, chances are they are going to ditch your site and look to a competitor with a better platform. Here are the top 10 most annoying website issues that plague Seattle websites:

#1 Instant Video Launch

This has to be the single most annoying website feature and it seems like every day, more and more sites are implementing this atrocity. You click on a website and the video starts rolling, the audio starts blaring and you’re scrambling to pause or mute because you don’t want to disrupt your whole office or the Starbucks. Too embarrassing!

#2 Instant Music Launch

Second to instant video launch is instant music. No one needs the website to “set a mood” with sound particularly if the music is loud, pulse-pounding or if there are potentially objectionable lyrics. A viewer may search for a stop or pause button, but most likely they will just hit back or close the page to shut down the sound!

#3 Back Button Trapping

Ever been on a website and you decide you want to go back a page to see where you were? How about when you click back and the website won’t let you go? This is horribly frustrating. Sometimes a double click on the back button will free you from the trap, sometimes not. And how about the pop-up window that asks if you’re sure you want to go but the buttons are confusing? Grrrr!

#4 Unreadable Fonts/Ridiculous Color Scheme

It’s amazing how many websites have fonts and color schemes that make it nearly impossible to read your content. Small fonts, dark backgrounds and not enough contrast between the background and the text colors can make your website a headache (literally) to view. No matter how great your offerings are if no one can see what you’re selling, they’ll shut it down!

#5 Slow Loading

The average consumer will give your website three to five seconds to load before they start toe tapping impatiently. If it won’t load, most people will give you a second chance by hitting refresh. If your site still won’t load, they’re going to ditch you. A ton of hi-res images, an excess of Java script and third party content can all drag down your load time. No one has time for that! You have even LESS time on a mobile device. Most mobile users will wait 6-10 seconds before abandoning a page.

#6 Browser Incompatibility

Everybody has their favorite browser and you shouldn’t assume that you know what portal a potential customer will be using to view your site. You must be sure that your website will display correctly in
Chrome, Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox and Safari. If your website won’t display in my browser of choice, must likely I’ll Google for an alternative site instead!

#7 Dysfunctional Mobile Version and Mobile Browser Hijacking

The majority of consumers now conduct most of their web searches on mobile devices – smart phones and tablets. If your site isn’t mobile optimized for Apple and Android devices, you’re in trouble! Another frustration is when you run a Google search and click on a result and instead of sending you to that link it pushes you to the home page of the mobile version. Uber-annoying!

#8 Flash Video

Death to Flash, I say! Many mobile devices (and all Apple mobile devices) are not Flash compatible so it’s content that’s wasted and it’s extremely frustrating to get that Flash error and know that you’re missing out on video that you may have wanted to watch. So lay off the Flash so you don’t have disappointed viewers who ditch your site because videos won’t load!

#9 Spelling/Grammar Errors or Sloppy Copy

Another frequent frustration is a website that’s clearly poorly written. If the copy is badly written or doesn’t read like standard English, if there are rampant grammatical and spelling errors this can leave you looking unprofessional and your potential customers thinking you don’t have a clue. You may think it doesn’t matter past fifth grade but spelling counts!

#10 Broken Links

Finally, if you’ve linked to another of your pages on your website or to an external source to provide additional information and that link doesn’t work, your reader is going to be frustrated. 404 errors are the bane of a web browsers existence. So are “sorry, that page doesn’t exist” errors or a link that promises one thing and delivers something else. Link better or lose visitors!

These are my top 10 pet peeves for annoying website attributes. If your site has any of these issues, you need to attend to them immediately. The good thing is these are all easy affordable fixes. If your Seattle website is guilty of any of these cardinal website sins, Seattle SEO Consultant can help. Contact us today for a free, no-obligation consultation on making your website much more appealing to users!