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Don't Blow Your
First Impression Send this report to me by auto-responder Developing traffic is not an accident. It is never a fluke. Traffic comes from your efforts to build it into your web page. One of the best places to improve your traffic may be to re-examine your index or default page, your home page, to see what kind of first impression you are making. When people hit your page, what will hold them there. Do you know you have only seconds to determine whether you are a bookmark or in the "next" category? You have very little time to impress your visitor and convert them into a friend. Once you are a friend, you will earn a bookmark or a sale or an email address for later follow-up. If you ask visitors to listen to your favorite tune, or look at your beautiful graphics, or wait for a long unbroken page of banners to download, or commit some other design error, your visitor will go to the next point of interest on his/her list. In online competition, being "next" wins no consolation prize. There is no honorable mention category. You attract attention or you don't. Traffic goes up or not. When you want to attract attention for your site, you must be careful to avoid anything on your page that distracts from your main objective, making a good first impression. Long load times which would result from any of the mistakes above will distract your visitor, and they will be gone. There are just too many other widget pages to see. No one will know how special your widget page is until they see it. When you introduce yourself to a stranger, I doubt that you say something like, "Hello. I am pleased to meet you. My name is Chris Kilian. I was born blah, blah, blah. My parents are blah, blah, blah. I am married to blah, blah, blah. I was educated in blah, blah , blah, but my past work experience is in blah, blah, blah, and I hope to be working in blah, blah, blah." In this example, you may let each blah equal 1-5 minutes, and you may assume that you are doing all the talking without breaks. You don't do that do you? Do you unload a barrage of information, desires, and the like on everyone you meet? I doubt it very seriously. If you do, I would wager many people are suddenly remembering urgent phone calls, needing to find a restroom, or a friend, or refresh their drinks, or check the weather, or whatever will allow them to break off from your one-sided conversations. Do you realize how much easier it is to take off when you are online? Surfers are trained to look for problems that, once spotted, will trigger the fight or flight response. Unless you are downloading your kid's page with him/her standing by your side, you do the same thing. Don't create reasons to have surfers fly off elsewhere. Do not fall into the mistake of believing you must tell your visitor everything all at one time. Break it up. Let your user decide what segments of information they want on each visit. If you must force people to see more than two banners or see artistic graphics or photos, at least let people know the benefit of waiting...and get that off your main page. Check the speed of your pages, especially the home page, by making visits to places like http://www.siteowner.com/ & http://www.websitegarage.com/ where you can get good idea about the download times for web pages. If you are above 16 seconds, you need to trim excess information, graphics and the like, or be satisfied with visits from only people who already know and love you enough to have the patience to wait for you to finish. Strangers will not do that. Another way to make a good impression is to come to the introduction bearing gifts. Which person would you always invite to your the party? One comes in with a short hello, makes a beeline for refreshments, and camps out the rest of the night there? Another one comes in with bottle of fine wine and snacks, looks at you when you speak, and is entertaining and informative? I would be sure to invite the second, then if needed, I would invite my relatives, er, anyone who acts like the first group. If someone is to be sacrificed, it will be Uncle Bob. Your home page is an online invitation to spend time with you or your products/services. If your home page appears to "look" not at the needs of your visitors, but at their wallets, for example on a commercial site, people will follow your "eyes" and be gone. If your first impression is that you are interested in yourself, and only if it suits you, will you serve your visitors, you will never get the chance. On the other hand, if you are able to inform or entertain, and you can get the point across quickly, you will be on your way to attracting attention in a good way. Bearing gifts for your visitors does not need to be expensive. The net lives on free. Free you can make. Free you can find. Get it. Reproduce it. Talk about it. What you are delivering of value is your time to create or find resources, programs, tools, websites. Time is the most valuable online asset. The value of content is that someone else spent the time to find the best collection of widgets, not your visitor. Give them the gift of time with valuable content, and you are on your way to earning a favorable impression. Since I may be new to some of you today, I don't want to over-extend my welcome. There is more to say some other day, but I have taken enough of your time today. You must make a good first impression to succeed online, and you can if your web page does not try to show or tell me too much too soon and if you give me something I want. Copyright © 1998 Stealth Promotions Chris Kilian operates Stealth
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