Marketing By Molly Yurick Website Features That May Be Working Against You C
ontrary to popular belief, your website is not about the products you sell, the services you provide, or the information you share. It’s actually about the people who visit it and their needs. As a website owner, your job is to turn those visitors into paying clients. But before you can do that, you have to keep visitors on your website for long enough to pique their interest. And that means not scaring off your pros- pects with features that are annoying or – even worse – that could make you look unprofessional. With all the web-design elements avail- able today, it’s easy to lose sight of what will work best for your target audience. However, once you shift your focus to serving your visitors instead of your own needs, avoiding these features becomes much easier.
Here are some website features that may be working against you: Aggressive pop-ups: Pop-ups come in all shapes and sizes. Some are intended to persuade visitors to interact with your call-to-action (“Sign up for our newsletter” or “Take our survey”), while others are paid advertisements to bring in some extra income. But, let’s be honest, pop-ups are quite bothersome, especially if they appear repeatedly. Expect to lose visitors if they have to spend more time closing pop-up windows than exploring your content. If you feel you need to include pop-ups on your site, make sure you do your home- work, place them well, and use them wisely. Translation plug-in: Translating your website into other languages is a smart business move if you are looking to expand into a bi-lingual market or interna- tionally. It makes your products or services available to more people in more places and may very well increase your sales and online success. While it may seem like a translation plug-in or machine transla- tion service will save you time and money,
Automotive Recycling visit
visitors do not have a positive experience when they land on your mobile site, you may drive away a huge portion of poten- tial traffic. So, make sure your website is responsive. Respon- sive websites include all the same content
think twice before taking action. Machine translation systems are great at getting the gist of a text, but often skew the meaning. For example, in some languages, a popular machine translation tool translated “U.S. President” as “Bush” well into the Obama administration. To avoid embarrassing mis- takes that scare off global customers, make sure you hire a professional translator who can perfectly craft your message for your audiences abroad. Autoplay video: It’s happened to every internet surfer out there. They arrive at a new website and an unfamiliar voice or loud music blasts through their speakers. They frantically stop the video, rub their sore ears, shake their fist at the screen and close the tab. Video may be all the rage right now, but the secret lies in knowing how to use it effectively.
Autoplay videos – whether for informa- tional purposes or to bring in revenue from advertisers – are annoying and will often push visitors away from your site. If you plan on using video on your website, add a prominent play button instead of having it autoplay. Let users decide whether they want to watch the video instead of deciding for them. A dysfunctional mobile version of your website: Mobile internet usage now surpasses computer usage. This means that you must have a mobile-friendly version of your website that maintains all the same key functions as the desktop version. If
and information on any device used to access them, but the display changes auto- matically based on the size of the viewer’s screen. Infinite-scrolling home page: Infinite scrolling is a design technique in which content continuously populates at the bottom of the screen as the user scrolls down the page. This technique can be very effective for certain types of sites, but for most, an infinitely long home page can be distracting and confusing. It increases load time, makes navigation and linking messy, and hides or eliminates the highly valuable website footer. Users often search the footer for contact information, social media links, and privacy or security notices. If you’re not sure what type of home page will work best for you, consult a web-design profes- sional to learn what works best with your target audience.
Whether you are a small business owner or manager or you own a multi-location auto recycling facility, all you have to remember is this: make your website for them, not for you.
Molly Yurick is a Spanish to English translator for a variety of industries. She is an active volunteer for the American Translators Association,
which represents over 10,000 translators and interpreters across 103 countries. For more information on ATA and to hire a translation or interpreting professional, visit
www.atanet.org.
March-April 2019 //29
iStock/Just Stock
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64