First Impressions Count - Even To A Search Engine

By Author: Steve Dorrington
Total Articles: 3698
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Before you think about submitting your site to a search engine, you need to be prepared. Don't think that because you have your domain name registered and a ‘under construction' page up that you are ready.

Don't even think about submitting your site to a single search engine until you are ready to receive guests or visitors. The worst thing in the world (I think so anyway) - is to follow a link to a website and only find a ‘under construction' message or a front page with lots of links with ‘coming soon' as a reward for my click.

Why did I come to your site? I want to either find out something interesting, look at something, download something or buy something - not to be told to come back later when you are ready - to tell the truth, I don't think I would bother coming back. Even when you tell me to come back because I'll remember and think been there before, it was a waste of time, full of coming soon stuff.

If you have a blog - don't leave the messages saying ‘Just testing' or ‘congratulations and welcome to your new blog'. Don't even think about writing ‘Welcome to ...
... my blog, over the next coming few days I will be' Just remember, the internet has no concept of time, but humans do. If I come to your site and find a ‘Welcome to my blog' post with lots of promises, but you don't deliver, why should I trust you with my time? My money? My business? The truth of the matter is, I won't.

I'm not going to go through a whole list of things that tend to put visitors off staying on a site - but here are a few of them:

Broken links (always check your links before you upload to a site)
Awful color schemes (Yellow and Red? - Try pastel colors)
Tiny fonts - I like to be able to read without pushing my nose to the monitor.
Difficult navigation - I want consistency and clearly labelled links

That should give you a bit to think about...