There are many things that go into making a successful landing page for a website. Which means, there are also many ways you could slip up to make your website take a turn for the worst. We’ve seen it all here at Transformation Marketing Bad Ad Rehab. Here are some of the warning signs:
1. Information Overload
People do want to be bombarded with information right when they land on your site. Especially if the information they are seeing isn’t what they came there for in the first place. A clean, attractive home page is vital to the success of a site.
2. Poor Navigation
We tell people the reason they don’t need so much information on their home page is because they are going to have a very user-friendly navigation to ensure users will find the information they came for. However, if you do not have a clean and easy to use navigation, this will obviously do just the opposite.
Example:
3. Too many ads
Again, don’t clutter your home page with things your viewers do not care about. Ads are fine in moderation, but make sure your site still looks professional and clean.
4. It’s Loud
By this, I don’t mean the design is loud. In fact, I mean this quite literally. We’ve all been surfing the web at work when suddenly we come to a page that has audio. You know exactly where your volume is, but it seems like it takes you a year to find it at this time and by the time you get it muted everyone’s staring at you. Unless you really need to be on that page, don’t you normally leave it?
5. Pop-Ups
Not spam pop-ups, but ones that you actually program your website to do, so that a screen comes up requesting their name and e-mail address for your database. And to make it worse, the x is so darn small, you get sick of trying to click it and just leave the page.
6. Outdated Information
Your website says it hasn’t been updated since 2002. The information must not be good anymore. (Even if this isn’t the case, this is what people think when they see this…. Wouldn’t you?)
7. Poor Design
If it doesn’t look professional, people won’t consider it to be.
Example:
The greatest rule of thumb to use is yourself. If it’s something you don’t like about other sites, it’s probably something people won’t like about your site. You can say you’re doing it differently or that it’s necessary for your site, but try to put yourself in your viewers’ shoes.
If you would like to report of an Ad Gone Bad, people contact us at info@transformationmarketing.com.