This week, Vincent Flanders of Web Sites That Suckposted his dubious list of 2006’s worst sites. His winners include #10 Brown University (“overwhelmingly difficult to use”) and #7 P&G (for their strange sideways navigation, among other things).
Vincent also notes, “There were so many bad sites last year that I had to divide The 10 Worst Sites of 2006 into two categories and add some extra winners.” His categories include “We’re back in 1995,” “Page is too long” and “Site most like a Monty Python skit.”
Here are all the award winners for your enjoyment:
If you don’t let all the Google AdSense ads distract you, you’ll find a lot of other interesting examples on his site. With sections like “what would Amazon.com do,” it’s always entertaining and sometimes educational as well.
There’s also this checklist of 148 mortal sins that companies commit on their websites. Here are his top three — you know your site needs work when:
- It’s designed and structured around your company’s needs rather than the problems of your visitors.
- It talks about how great your company is instead of how it solves your customers’ problems.
- It takes more than four seconds to figure out what the site is about.
These are meaningful and relevant tips for every company on the planet. And those are just the first three on the list….
Karl Long wrote this great post (11/24/2008 – no longer available) on the MarketingProfs blog today and I had to pass it along.
The topic: Forms on your website – or as he calls them, the “red-headed stepchild of touchpoints.” As he points out, “it’s probably one of the first points at which the customer is going to “experience” your company, and the experience is generally (at best) blah and (at worst) hostile.”
It’s easy to leave forms in the hands of your programming team. Don’t. You’re asking a prospect or customer to invest time to take action and give you critical information. It’s the moment of impact! And if your form is clunky, hostile, long or uses incomprehensible error messages, you’re hurting the credibility you’ve just spent so much time/energy/money creating.
Does your company’s website have any of the following forms?
- An order form
- Newsletter signup
- White paper download form
- Webinar signup (on your site or that of a technology partner)
- A “contact us” form
Each and every form should be consistent with your brand promise & value proposition. Are they?
If you’re not absolutely positive, set aside some time today for testing. Pretend you’re a prospect and visit every form on your site.
1. Look at the number of fields. As a prospect, do you think you’re making a fair trade for your time and data? Be honest.
2. How’s the writing? Is it consistent with the rest of your site? (Karl points out how Cork’d uses humor in their form with great success.)
3. Is the layout friendly or clunky? It should look as great as the rest of your site.
4. Put garbage data into the form. What happens? Are the error messages simple and easy to understand? Or do you become frustrated and leave?
5. Submit your data and look at your thank-you page. You have a terrific opportunity to keep building your message and relationship on this page. Are you taking advantage of that opportunity?
6. Review the fulfillment email. Again, does it look, feel and sound as good as it should?
And if you have any other suggestions or good examples for our readers, add a comment below or send me an email!
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