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Usually Sam writes about the more ‘techy’ web stuff, but today I want to share a couple of my own pet peeves that may also be frustrating for visitors to your website or blog.
Have you ever been on a site (or blog), clicked on a link, and found yourself whisked away to another site entirely? If that happens a few times, after several clicks I defy you to remember where you originally started off!
It isn’t so bad if the link leads to another page within your own site – but you certainly don’t want people disappearing to someone else’s website, because it means you could be accidentally losing potential clients. Fortunately the solution is very easy.
When you (or your webmaster) are making the hyperlink live, you should see an option to either ‘Open in same window’ or ‘Open a new window’. Always select ‘Open a new window’, especially if the alternative means one click will take the visitor away from your site.
My second pet peeve usually happens when I’m exploring a site for the first time. I’m clicking away happily, visiting all the pages to learn about the business (and business owner), and then, suddenly, I run out of road! I can’t find a button to return me to the home page. Oh, I know I can hit the back button on the browser, but if I’ve visited several pages, I’d have to click it several times. Most web visitors don’t want to have to work that hard! They want results with the minimum number of clicks.
So, do make sure that there’s a clearly marked way back to your website’s home page – if you want to keep your visitors happy!
