5 Ways to Make People Leave Your Site

Whenever I visit other sites to get news for my blogs or just to read the latest stories, the Monetizer always takes note quickly of website annoyances. These most likely aren't just irking the Monetizer but the majority of visitors and it makes you wonder why the site owners are running a site without thinking of how they want to be seen. Here's a quick list of 5 major annoyances Monetizer has noticed amongst some poorly set up sites.

1) Make it hard to find information - If the Monetizer was looking for something and visits a site then sees absolutely nothing related, he's leaving. Some people believe in "tricking" the system by loading up on meta keywords unrelated to their site page just to get traffic. Big mistake, play by the rules if you want real traffic. It's understandable if you want to just attract traffic for Adsense, but be realistic about the audience you want continuously visiting your site. This is especially true if you're blogging. The inability to find something a search engine produced isn't always the site's fault though. Google or other search engines may be somewhat to blame in the search results they are returning.

You could add to this tip the concept of "poor site navigation". If someone arrives at your site and can't find their way around in a relatively easy manner, they're probably leaving (which probably goes back to the trick of setting up sites just for Adsense).

2) Use those Dreaded Pop-Up Ads - Believe it or not, there's some sites (and I won't name names) that still believe in tricking visitors with HUGE pop-up ads. The question becomes do you want people visiting your site or not? When they go to the site to read an article and have a huge wall blocking their view, why would they want to come back again? When their purpose for visiting your site is to read what you have to say and then they have to try to click out of a huge box in their face, is that fair to them? One site I can recall has this happening constantly whenever you try to move to another part of the site. The year is 2007 and it's time to ditch that tactic in lieu of keeping people coming back to your site and allowing them to see what they want.

3) Create Overloaded, slow loading sites - This works in conjunction with #2 sometimes, but there are some sites that just are set up so poorly it takes forever to finally see some info you want to read. The site keeps loading and loading, because it has a ton of java script ads, pictures and other items installed. The person who designed it thinks they've jammed it full of cool, attractive stuff, but in reality it's a major pain to their visitors. Take some time to research ways to make your site load quickly, then worry about sponsorship ads and java tricks. Also, there are ways to put java code into seperate files versus right into the site's HTML code.

4) Use redirects to unrelated pages - Again there are some sites that redirect you away from what you clicked on to visit or read. You may have seen a headline, clicked it and then all of a sudden you're taken away from the page you were on or wanted to see. It makes little sense and this will only serve to irritate a visitor and make them "click out" or away from your site because they aren't getting what they came for.

5) Use Fakeness or Copycatting - Monetizer has visited sites with fake headlines at the end of a news story or entry which seem set up just to get people to visit another site. You take the "bait" click on the headline and arrive at a site full of more headlines that are real, but don't see the one you wanted to read about. This is a VERY poor tactic because while it may capture someone's short term interest, it will really irritate a person when they get to a site and find out that info was fake.

You could add to this point the concept that abounds on the internet of people stealing other people's blog entries and copying site design so they can make a fast buck. Very uncool and most likely when you get found out, things will just come crashing down. Avoid it. In keeping with politeness, John Cow has a post written prior to this about 5 Reasons he Stopped Reading Your Blog.

Amazingly, the Monetizer found all 5 of these mistakes listed above on just one website alone. Rest easy though, it was not a "Make Money" or "SEO" blog, but a totally different niche. The lesson here is to always view your site just as you were the customer or reader visiting it. Does it meet your expectations and standards for a site you want to check out further?

Basically if you're running a website the best policy is "do unto others as you would have done to you". It's a simple rule to go by, think about yourself as the reader when visiting a site and what you would really want to tolerate. Would you want to have to click out of Pop Up ads or wait up to 30 seconds or a minute to get the info you want, when you're using high speed internet? It's common consideration but more importantly it's what will keep people returning to your website because you've designed it to be"user friendly".

Blog Promotion Items You Need

When it comes to marketing or promoting your blog or website, it can be a rough road because many sites will require you to provide certain bits of info, over and over and over. Blog and RSS directories for example all differ in what they might ask for. Some may just ask for an RSS feed or your blog's URL, while others will ask for much more detailed info. Here's some tips on what you might keep handy in a folder for your blog or website before you embark upon submitting to directories and listing sites.

- Create a 468x60 banner for your blog or site. Many directories will include your banner when visitors check out your info. This can also be used for your personal signature on many forums as well as on your Myspace or other social media profiles. There are online animated GIF creation programs if you want to get fancy with this too. You could also use the rotating blog headline display that Feedburner provides you, which should fit this size and work well to promote your material.

- Create a 100x100 icon of your blog or self image. Sites like MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog and many many social media sites will ask for an avatar image. This size will be handy and can easily be resized or scaled down for whatever measurements are required. You may consider making a few icons though of different sizes (48x48, 64x64 and 100x100) just to have several on hand.

- Keep a text or word document with all of the following info:

Your blog's title.
Your Blog/Site URL
Your Blog/Site RSS URL
A description of your blog or website (100 words or less)
Your contact email
Keywords separated by commas (just in case)

The above info is very helpful when completing numerous directory submissions. It can be quite tedious to continually have to enter all of that, especially the description of your blog or site. The above will also help with many social media sites because some are allowing for input of your RSS and other info these days.

Keeping all of the above in a folder for your blog will be a great way to stay organized when you go to join social media sites and submit your blog/site to directories. I keep seperate text documents for RSS/URL's for blogs as well as a document of links from blogs, etc. Both are easily accessible for when a copy/paste may be needed. You may consider keeping a text document full of your top blog/site links for when you are commenting other blogs or forums. This can help greatly with "deep linking", a practice which in same cases helps your Google and other search engine status. Be prepared and then begin your quest to start getting your blog or site's name out there!

There's a nice list of blog and RSS directories you can submit to here at TopRankBlog.

Also see Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites.