People don't tolerate your wasting their time.

Contrary to popular practice, the job of a Website designer, who understands marketing, is not to speed up Website visitors, but to slow them down so they can absorb their marketing message.

If you want people to remember you, to understand why they should give you their business, then slow them down long enough to absorb your message. And your message better be worth their while or they will never come back.

How To Drive people Away From Your Website

If you want to drive people away faster than you attract it, here are some of the things you should do.

1. Give Web-visitors Too Many Options and Choices

Scientific studies have concluded the more choices you give people, the less likely they are to make a decision. Some choice is good, but too much choice creates confusion.

A well designed Website explains, directs, guides, and focuses visitor attention on the things that are of real benefit to your visitors and to your company.

2. Give Web Visitors Too Much Information To Process

Good Website design is about deciding what needs to be presented and what needs to be left out. If you are truly an expert marketer, you should know what information is important to your customers in order for them to make a decision. Too much information is like too much choice, it confuses rather than clarifies. Focus on delivering meaningful content or risk having your visitors hit the exit button.

3. Give Web Visitors Too Much Non-relevant Content

The only thing worse than overloading your Website with more information than visitors can absorb is confusing them with useless and non-relevant content.

Non-relevant content is content that doesn't advance your major purpose: to deliver your marketing message in an informative, engaging, entertaining, and memorable manner. If it isn't relevant, dump it.

4. Give Web Visitors Too Many Irritating Distractions

Websites should be designed to direct visitors to the information they want and that information should be the content you want to deliver.

A real prospect is one that needs the same information you want to provide; the art of selling is directing potential clients to relevant information, and presenting it in a way that fulfills their needs.

On the surface, third-party advertisements and banners may seem like a good way to make some extra cash from your traffic, but these ads become so distracting, visitors either get fed-up or click on a link that takes them away from your site. The few bucks you earn from these ads are chasing real customers away; this of course assumes you are a real business with something legitimate to sell, and not a Website that's an excuse to deliver advertisements. Other nonsense like favorite links and silly fluff-content merely distracts visitors from investigating your site to find what they are looking for.

Note: For CityAmerica sites, you should drive people to your local advertisers, not to somebody way off in cyber space.

5. Give Web Visitors Too Many Red Flags

Website visitors are constantly looking for red flags that tell them your site should be skipped as soon as possible. If you want people to deal with you, make sure you omit contact information: no contact names, no telephone numbers, and no mailing address is a sure sign that you won't look after any problems that arise from a Website transaction.

Your Website must be designed to build trust and foster a relationship, not scare people away.

6. Give Web Visitors Too Many Decisions To Make

How many decisions do you demand from your visitors so they can do business with you?

7. Give Web Visitors Too Many Stumbling Blocks

Do you make people go through the order processing system before they can find out how much something costs, or do you demand potential customers read a ridiculous amount of small print legalese that only a lawyer could understand? If you want to drive people away from your site make sure you build in as many stumbling blocks as possible.

8. Give Web Visitors Too Many Forms To Fill-in

Do you attract your visitors with special offers or free white papers and then demand that they fill-out complex forms, surveys, and questionnaires before you give them access to what they came for? If you do, you are probably losing a lot of people you attracted, and you are guaranteeing that your next email promotion will end up in the trash.

9. Give Web Visitors Incomprehensible Page Layouts

Good design, proper page layout, consistent navigation, and well organized information promotes serendipity, helps visitors find what they're looking for, and provides a pleasant, efficient, and rewarding experience.

Designs that rely on technology, databases, and search engine optimization rather than focused content, chase people away.

10. Give Web Visitors Too Many Confusing Instructions

One of the most frustrating experiences people encounter is confusing instructions and incoherent explanations of how your product or service works, or how to order what you are selling.

11. Give Web Visitors Too Many Reason To Click-out

If you are determined to fail, make sure you provide people as many reasons as possible to leave your site. Irrelevant links to other sites because you're too cheap (or lazy) to put their information on your own site, or any combination of the reasons mentioned above, all drive people away from your site.