12 Ways To Annoy Visitors To Your Website
This is a satirical look at usability. Make sure you are not making these mistakes.
1. Under Construction 
'Sorry, this page is still under construction' - this sentence has become one of the clichés of the Web. You'll hear this hundreds of times: some websites are continuously under construction. Do not allow your website to be found until you think it's ready.
2. Broken Links
Not only do broken links hurt your website rankings when crawled by the search engines, but they frustrate visitors. Test your links on a regular basis or let your visitors help you by including an option on each page to 'Report a Broken Link.'
3. Websites that require the 'www' to work
Make the www necessary in your URL and confuse the heck out of them when they type in the domain name without the www and get shown an error page. Terrible.
4. Background music
Play background music when they arrive at your page to make your visitors hate you. If that's not enough of an annoyance, make sure you loop the music so that the visitors are plagued by it continuously. You don't have to worry about choosing a horrible tune - choose your favourite song if you like. Don't provide a stop button. Make it restart again on every new page. They'll soon leave.
5. Flash Intros
The worst way to use Flash is to have a Flash intro on your website. (Flash intros are those annoying animations that play when you arrive at the website). If you really like Flash intros, then at least include a 'Skip Intro' button that is clearly visible to the user.
Finally, be careful with the inclusion of sound in your Flash intro - see point 4. If someone has their speakers turned up to a high volume, then you could be responsible for scaring the living daylights out of them.
6. Slow Websites
Slow websites drive people away more than most of the other stuff above put together. An article in PC Magazine cited a study which indicated that we only have 4 seconds to capture a web visitors interest before they leave the site. On the Web, 4 seconds can be a lifetime.
That isn't long, but it is possible to get stuff displaying early, and build on that. It's called progressive downloading.
7. Links Open in the Same Window
If links to other sites do not open in a new window, then you are giving your traffic away. Do not expect your visitors to use the 'Back' button in their browser or remember where they started. Once they are gone, they are most likely gone for good.
8. Terrorism with Typography
Do not make your website unreadable! Typography DOES matter. Read our articles to avoid mistakes.
Having typos and incorrect grammar gives the impression of a poorly edited page. A bit of checking through your work will perform miracles on your mess up rate, and make you look more professional too.
9. Pop-ups
Load your site with pop-up windows that open when your visitor reaches your page as well as when they leave the page if you want to make your visitors hate you. In fact, if you want to annoy them even further, open a pop-up window when they click on links on your site.
10. Make them register and login before they purchase
They'll be naturally terrified and run off. Even better, make them register before they can even view the website and you will never see them again.
11. Delay their gratification or their dis-gratification
Show items that aren't in stock at the moment they order, services you used to provide, options that won't work for them. Only tell them a product is not available AFTER they click through to the shopping cart total. Frustration guaranteed.
12. Disable the right click menu of the browser
Nevermind that people need the right click menu for many purposes, and that they can access the same functions through the main menu bar even after you've disabled it. After all, if your aim is to annoy, you might as well make their visit to your site as unpleasant as possible.
If your site is guilty of any of the above offenses, then it's time to act. Evaluate the websites you visit and notice which sites look professional and which sites need help.
Virtually anyone can run a successful website by choosing good a webdesigner and avoiding these mistakes.
Contact us if you need any help.
Sincerely,
HeadChannel Ltd
www.headchannel.co.uk
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