10 Reasons A Bride Will Leave Your Website (continued)

Poor Navigation

When a bride can't clearly figure out how to get from one page to another at your web site she'll usually just use the one thing she can count on every time - her BACK button - and leave. Navigation links should allow moving from your home page to any other page on your web site within two clicks. The most usable navigation (i.e. bride friendly) uses both TEXT links (underlined blue text links) and graphical buttons (buttons!! not pictures). I just finished a book by a consultant who works for America Online. They pay him big $$$ every year to make sure AOL is easy to use and "user-friendly". When it comes to navigation, at web sites that deliver the best results, he says it comes down to these five words, "Don't make them think." Poor

Overall Design

In the past 12 months the quality of most of the wedding sites I've visited has improved significantly. I attribute this to the fact that sharp business owners and managers know they can sell more wedding products and book more of their services with a top-notch web site. As a result, most understand that taking a casual approach to the design and marketing of their web sites is a mistake that costs them sales. If you've never built a web site before, if you don't have a very good understanding of online marketing, web page design, programming, and layout, it's unlikely a "home-grown" site will be very effective at selling more of your products or services. When brides find a poorly designed web site it doesn't leave a very good impression. Not surprisingly, they usually just leave and go looking for something better.

Poorly Written Marketing Copy

The words that appear at your web site communicate a message and if your message is poorly written, grammatically incorrect, or difficult to follow, you significantly increase the chances of a bride leaving your web site with a less than favorable impression about your business. Even if she doesn't leave, an ineffectively written and delivered message will reduce the results you get. Marketing copy makes a big difference.

Eye Candy Doesn't Work

Forget about loud colors, blinking or scrolling text, fancy animated graphics, that's NOT what brides are looking for. It isn't a very good way to portray your business and in some cases it communicates the wrong message. In the worst case, it leaves a bad impression. Anything at your web site that distracts or challenges someone's eyes is a potential problem and will most likely annoy a bride or groom who is trying to make a decision about using your products or services.

Get To The Point (FAST)

Give a bride or groom the information they came to your web site looking for and DO IT FAST. If you don't they're likely to become disinterested and then leave looking for better information somewhere else. You probably have less than 20 seconds to deliver enough information to keep a bride interested in staying at your web site. Keep your pages clean looking and well organized. Make it easy for a bride/groom to find information about WHO you are, WHAT you do, WHAT you're going to do for them, WHAT special services you offer, WHAT makes you different and WHY they should do business with you. Everything else is fluff. Brides don't buy fluff they want the real thing - so get to the point right away and give them what they came looking for.

Inadequate Contact Information

Brides love the Internet because it saves them time and makes finding local wedding services easier than ever before. Typically (or, hopefully) a bride will visit your web site, browse through several of your pages, and then want to know how to contact you. Besides an online inquiry form (not just an EMAIL link), you should have your company name, address, phone, fax and email address at the bottom of every page (or in another appropriately located position on each page). If this information isn't easily available it sets up a situation where a bride can visit your site but then leave without taking the next natural step: making an inquiry and requesting more information.

Happy New Year!

Hope it's your best yet!