What makes an annoying website? I ask this question because I think very few people intentionally design or developed annoying websites. We end up having an annoying website sometimes when we just think about our preferences instead of thinking about making life easier for our visitors. We forget that the most important aspect of the website is the easy access to the information we are intending to provide to our visitors. A website that we think is a masterpiece may look like a nuisance to your visitors. Let us quickly go through a few pointers that sometimes end up making your website annoying without you realizing it.

Difficult to read text

They can be many factors that make it difficult to read your text; you may have a color contrast that is highly straining to the eye — for instance red text on yellow background (I know it is an extreme case). Some websites have microscopic text and it is so weird why on earth they have such a small font size on every page of the website. Make sure your text is easily readable; if possible get a second opinion, for instance you may find dark-gray text on a black background cool but there are many people who cannot read such text.

Lots of needless animation and sound

Lots of animation in the form of advertisements or misplaced extra effects also make your website annoying. If the textual information present on your website is important then don’t distract or irritate your visitors with lots of animations and noises. There is no need to play loud music when people come to your website because many people may be accessing your website at places that are quiet and where loud noise is not appreciated.

Lots of intrusive advertisements

Even if you maintain a website or a blog to earn advertising revenue don’t throw the advertisements at your readers’ faces. Let the advertisements be a part of your overall design rather than popping up here and there restricting access to the content your visitors are looking for.

A difficult-to-figure-out navigation

Your navigation should be prominently visible on your website and it should be extremely easy to access all the links in your navigation whether you use text or images. In case you use a JavaScript or a Flash animation to generate your navigation menu than make sure that a text-menu alternative is available too. A navigation menu that is difficult to click on is a very big turn-off for most of your visitors.

Lots of boastful copy

In case you are selling a service or a product from your website then using a hyperbolic pitch in your sales copy is a sure shot way of sending your visitors away to your competitor’s website because the Internet is full of such spurious, boastful noises. Always use informative copy on all the pages giving the right and relevant information to your visitors to help them make the correct decision as easily and quickly as possible.

The pop-ups

A pop-up is a widely-detested way of throwing information in your visitor’s face. Most people dislike pop-ups and if you have them on your website and if you wonder why you don’t get much business than it might be, or it must surely be the pop-ups that are sending your visitors away even before they can read something. A pop-up should only appear if it is absolutely unavoidable and if it is an integral part of your online application. Never ever use pop-ups to display advertisements and ask people to subscribe to your newsletter or buy your product.

Basically everything that makes it difficult to access important information or functions on your website is annoying. Everything on your website should be there to enhance the experience of your visitors. In order to decide whether they want to do business with you or not you need a professional, clean, and easily accessible website; they don’t need the dancing monkeys are the squealing whales to get enlightened.

However much we might emphasize the importance of SEO the truth is that people are right when they say that content is still king.

Nowadays, with the advent of blogs, website content has become easier and easier to generate resulting in more and more pages out there about every conceivable topic on earth. It is true that though emphasis is still placed in content this makes it even harder to come up with content that will stand out above (or at list distinctly) from the others. This is a problem because as we all know for a website to be truly successful in its niche it has to have content that will make visitors keep on coming back and even refer the page, whether via links or spoken word, to others. Without great content no amount of SEO will seal you and your website’s reputation.

The funny thing is that right now the general tack people take in order to get their websites to have the content they want is usually by adding a blog to their site. Now there is nothing wrong with blogs. If there were I wouldn’t be writing this blog entry. ^_^ In fact blogs are great especially if you simply want to share your hobby or passion. Blogs are also very good for generating fresh content on a more regular basis. It would be sheer folly to change your homepage’s content daily (unless your website is a news aggregator or is based on some dynamic concept) because it is important for your visitors (especially if you have an online business) to become familiarised with your website in order to help them locate the information they need fast each time they visit the site. Blogs are a good solution for giving your visitors fresher and more updated content. However, you shouldn’t rely on the blog to set your site apart from others in your field. Ok so there are some people out there who are so good that their blogs have become meccas for people in their own field. In search we have Matt Cutts, randfish, William Slawski, etc. But the point is that not everyone churn out as many excellent posts as frequently as they could.

So what’s my point?

My point is simply this if you wish for your website to be known for offering great content do not rely on your blog at once to do that. Instead it is better to consolidate your knowledge into one great resource and then put that up as your main content. It will take a whole lot more effort to come out with such content but in the end if you are able to come out with something that can be considered as one of the classic contents in your field then that will seal the fate of both you and your site. Do continue blogging but take time to publish the really useful resource. In the end your site will rise because of that one single page (or it can be pages if it’s really long…and it will be long if you take on an exhaustive approach to whatever it is you plan to write about) but your blog will not become irrelevant since it will be where people will check for updates. If you lack the time to do this you can just keep on blogging but do not be surprised if even if your blog does well enough, you don’t end up among the ranks of gurus in your field.

It is very much clear that the climatic conditions and the ecological threat are increasing day by day. The environmental problems are increasing and the concepts of Global Warming and Pollution are already increased with a pace never experienced before. Being a SEO this are some of the suggestions which I can give so that we SEOs can contribute our inputs in stopping this hazards.

• Lessen the use of paper: Instead of printing everything out opt to digitize as much as you can. This is true for any business, whether SEO or not. As a good example apple has lessened the use of paper products by making the packaging as small as possible. The insert that came with my new iPod Nano (Thanks hubby!) is really small and asks customers to simply go online to get more information. Since we do not have products to ship out you can lessen the use of paper by corresponding through email, editing drafts before printing them out, lessening handouts during presentations, etc.

• Blog about the environment: It may be the most easy thing which we as Search Engine Optimizers can make blogs which can guide people to avoid doing things which leads to environmental degradation.
• Conserve energy: Since we all spend a huge amount of time in front of the computer I wouldn’t be surprised if many have the same bad habit that I do of leaving the PC on when going on a break. At the very least turn off your monitor or set it to hibernate when going on a long break. Turn off the lights whenever you leave the room and turn off the radio/tv if you are not really watching it and is simply used to having it on all the time.

• Link to conservation efforts: Once in a while link, even if off topic, link to noteworthy conservation efforts you find on the net. Not only will it help raise awareness but also give these worthy sites added link juice.
I’m sure there are lots of other things everyone can think off to help the environment. What are you going to do to help the environment today? Share it with us or you can share it on Google Maps.

Your landing page is the first-most glimpse your visitor gets of your website. In most of the cases, your home page, or your index page is your landing page, but if you are running an online advertising campaign such as Adwords, it is crucial that you have specially dedicated landing pages for your advertising campaigns for individual search terms. Have a lousy or ill-planned landing page and your visitors will leave your website within a few seconds, no matter what valuable service or product your other pages provide, or talk about. So in that sense, your landing page has the power to make or break your online business.

Listed below are a few steps you can take to create perfect or near-to-perfect landing pages.

1) Define the purpose of your landing page

You need to know exactly what your landing page needs to achieve. Should it:
• Prompt people to subscribe to your newsletter?
• Contact you for more details?
• Explore your website further?
• Buy a product or a service present on your landing page?
• Join your affiliate program?

Once you have a clear picture you can create your landing page with greater degree of lucidity and purpose. You can write the copy accordingly.

2) Write convincing copy on your landing page

What you write on your landing page is what you want to convey to your visitors. Keep it succinct, and be honest: honesty shows through your message. Talk to your visitors as if you are welcoming them into your office or shop. Don’t load them with information, but be titillating enough to prompt them to explore further or get in touch with you to know more about what you can do for them.

3) Keep the distractions away from your landing page

Don’t put too many bells and whistles on your landing page. Remember that the visitor is not there to be amused by you; he or she is there to do business. So keep the graphics, animations and JavaScript tricks to the minimum. Some even suggest to do away with your main navigation bar, but I don’t recommend that.

4) create an accessible, easily navigable landing page

Create a landing page that is totally accessible. There are thousands of surfers with special needs. If they come to your website through your advertising link and then have to leave because they cannot access your website with their browsing tools it will be a big waste both in terms of lost advertising money and good will. Put all the relevant links there so that they can easily be referred to make a purchase decision.

5) Display your contact information prominently on your landing page

On your landing page, make it very easy to contact you so that people don’t leave your website just because they cannot figure out how to get in touch with you. Prominently display your contact form and your phone numbers on your landing page.

6) Finally, keep testing your landing page

You can never create the perfect landing page just like that. You need to try different formats and copies to finalize a landing page that generate maximum results for you. Many online advertising programs such as Adwords let you try out different pages for single ad campaigns so that you can make out what works for you and what not.

A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. They earn reputation by trying to do hard things well. netZtrack the internet marketing company which was earlier known for its services like social media marketing, search engine optimization and website designing has upgraded themselves with the latest trends of Online reputation management to maintain its own reputation and the customers reputation online.

In case if the reputation of a brand is being bad mouthed online, netZtrack comes for its rescue by simply following three steps i.e. planning, strategic analysis, and action. Of course they investigate facts internally before taking action – verify whether it is a competitor spreading rumor and try to analyze the extent of damage caused and what are the sites and blogs which is spreading such comments. Based on these findings promptly a strategy is developed and then immediate action is taken which includes writing positive blogs, adding multiple web pages, participating forums, which can be easily searched in the search engines, thus acting as a protective shield from the negative listings. A continuous practicing of the above mentioned activities is done till the time the brands reputation is regained.

Mark.K; CEO netZtrack is of the opinion that “the online customer generated media has got lot of power. It has got the ability to make and break things in a short span of time. So it is very necessary to use this media as tool for building up reputation online”. He also believes that “brands have to be in continuous contact with the customers and keep them updated about the company’s happenings.”

Contact:
netZtrack.Inc.
Phone: (415)-690-2861
E-Mail us to: sales@netztrack.com