SEO Hosting Blog

Great content isn’t enough for having a successful blog. Design matters too. If your design makes any of these 4 annoying mistakes, you could frustrate visitors and cripple your growth.

1. Pop-up ads—This is the most annoying blog design trend of the moment. You’ve surely experienced it. You land on the blog, start reading the post, and about 5 seconds later, an ad pops up, interrupting you and asking you to subscribe to an email list or to the blog. When this happens, I usually just close out the tab, neither subscribing or finishing reading the post because it’s do annoying.
2. Small content area—There’s nothing wrong with having a sidebar and some ads on your blog, but remember, content is the foundation of your blog. When you load your page with so much junk that it compresses the content area to virtually nothing, you’re killing the readability and usability of your blog.
3. Lack of branding—I’m not saying you have to drop thousands of dollars on your blog design. I’m not even saying that you can’t use a template. But you do need to add something to the design that makes it yours. Something that lets visitors immediately know where they are. Something that separates your blog from all others.
4. Widget overload—All the various plugins, buttons, and other fancy widgets can improve the look and functionality of your blog…when used sparingly. If you get carried away, your blog will have way too much going on, pulling your visitor’s attention in a thousand different directions.

What are some of the blog design mistakes that really annoy you? Vent your frustration by leaving a comment below.

Web usability is always a hot topic. Companies are always looking for ways to tweak their websites to make them more user-friendly so that they will get more conversions.

In my opinion, anyone who is concerned with web usability should take a look at Google’s homepage at Google.com. There, you can gain many lessons in what makes a website simple and easy to use.

Look at the image above. There’s not much to it at all, right? It has the Google name, a search bar, and two buttons. That’s it. It’s as simple as it gets.

It’s no wonder Google is the most visited website on the internet. Sure, people love the search results it provides, but Google’s simplicity is what has caused it to win out over Yahoo!.

When you go to the Yahoo! homepage, you’re presented with so many options, you have no idea where to look or what to do. It’s overwhelming and distracting. It causes choice paralysis. Too many options can definitely be a bad thing, so keep that in mind when designing your website. Each page should have a specific purpose and a specific action that you want the user to take.

That’s where Google’s homepage succeeds. The only action they want you to take is to type something in the search bar and get some results. That’s it.

Simplicity is the name of the game. The easier you can make things for your website visitors, the more conversions you’ll get. Don’t ask them to do several different things, and don’t make them dig to find what it is that they’re looking for. Remove any unnecessary elements from the page that aren’t contributing to the goal of converting the visitor.

In short, I’ll sum it up with the popular phrase “Keep it simple, stupid!”

How many times have you been on a website, gotten ready to make a purchase, only to discover that before you could place your order, you had to create an account with the company? Forcing your customers to jump through hoops just to do business with you is never a smart move. That’s not to say that having the option to open a checkout account isn’t a good idea, but it shouldn’t be a requirement for buying from you.

Here are 4 reasons to also include a guest checkout option on your website.

1. Some people aren’t comfortable with giving out personal information—Online shoppers are often very cautious, and they don’t want to provide you with any more information than they have to in order to complete their purchase. Asking them to create an account could scare them away.
2. It makes checkout appear faster and easier—Even if guest checkout isn’t actually faster than registering for an account, the average person thinks it is. So, if they’re impatient and want to hurry up and place their order, having the option of guest checkout could be the difference between making the sale or losing it.
3. A large percentage of customers prefer the guest checkout option—One study I read recently found that, when given the option, 30% of customers will use guest checkout. Doesn’t it just make sense to give your customers what they want?
4. It can only help things—How is having the option of guest checkout going to hurt you? It won’t. It can only help things, not hurt them. Yes, it’d be nice if you could get every customer to sign up for an account, but it’d be even nicer not to lose out on sales because certain customers don’t feel like signing up.

Do you offer your customers the option of guest checkout?

I’ve seen countless case studies showing that implementing videos on landing pages can significantly increase your conversion rate, and it just makes sense, when you think about it. Having another tool on the page that engages the visitor, educates them on the benefits of your product or service, and encourages them to take action has to be helpful.

However, just throwing a video on your landing page isn’t guaranteed to boost your conversion rate. There are some serious mistakes you need to avoid when implementing video on your site.

1. Setting the video to play automatically—On landing pages that have a mix of text and video, setting the video to play automatically is a bad idea. It disrupts the visitor as he’s trying to read, and it’s honestly just a bit annoying. If someone wants to watch the video, they know how to click the play button. Give them the choice.
2. Poor production quality—Your video doesn’t have to look like Spielberg directed it, but it needs to at least have a clear picture and easy-to-hear audio. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen videos on landing pages with audio so poor that you can’t hear half of what’s being said. That will hurt your conversion rate, not help it.
3. Too dang long—Whenever I go to load up a video and I see it’s like 20 minutes long, there’s no chance in hell I’m watching it. I have better things to do with my 20 minutes (like watching videos of an armless man destroying a hotel lobby) than watch an infomercial online. Keep your videos short and entertaining if you want people to sit through them.
4. No personality—Your videos have to be at least somewhat entertaining or interesting. No one wants to watch a boring video that lacks personality.

What are your best tips for using video on a landing page?

If you’re thinking about launching a new website or redesigning your current site, you might be tempted to try to save a few bucks by using a free or cheap template design. You can download these pre-designed websites, plug in your content and images, and have a new website up all without paying a web designer. Sounds great, right?

Well, while there might be some small benefits to using a web template (I admit it, I’ve used them), there are several drawbacks that might make you think twice about going this route. Here are 5 good reasons not to use a template design.

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