How to Kill Your Online Business

Bet you're thinking this is a strange title for an article on Business right? Well, it's what MANY people do without even realizing it.
They kill their business before they really get it off the ground.

With the computer era and everything gone online, many people took to designing websites and advertising online and doing the whole "e thing".

This creates an endless supply of avenues for sales and promoting your business that is open 24/7 and can be seen throughout the WORLD. No longer is your business only open when someone's physically 'in' the store. No longer is your business only open in one location, your 'local' area. Now you can be seen WORLD WIDE 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year (366 during leap year!).

But, your web site can MAKE or BREAK your business.

Here are a few ways to instantly kill your business:

1) Have your site hosted on a 'freebie' host (ie: geocities, yahoo, angelfire, etc.)-- If you won't spend $3.50/month on hosting on a real server that just doesn't look good to potential customers. It makes it look like you're 'too cheap' to really invest in your business.

Even if you have registered your OWN domain and still have it forward to a 'freebie' site people still know it's a freebie site.
If you have your forwarding url 'masked' so they don't physically 'see' it's a freebie site, with all the ads and pop ups and error messages, people still know it's not being hosted on a paid server and lose interest.

2) Have a ton of pop ups on your site. That'll kill a biz instantly.
(nobody enjoys pop ups and research has shown that the majority of people either block them or close them out BEFORE they even look at them) But, hey if you want to kill your biz and lose a customer, put your site on a server that has zillions of pop ups.

3) Have your site on yahoo or geocities with the 'yahoo ad' that takes up a large section of your right hand side of your site. People want to SEE your site, not what geocities or yahoo has to offer, but what YOU have to offer.

4) Have a site with 'error' messages on it... that shows that you're not interested in fixing whatever html, script, or code error there is on your site, which potential clients equate to "you don't care enough about your customers or your products."

5) Have a site that's loaded with animated graphics and nonsense that will slow down even the best computers. (Some people are STILL on dial up so if they can't get to your actual CONTENT because of all the graphics, they'll never see what you have to offer)

6) Have a site that does NOT contain your contact information.
People, even those doing biz online, still want to ensure your biz is 'legit' even if they never talk to you, it'd be nice for them to have a means to do so to ensure they COULD talk to you if need be.

7) Have the most difficult to find site menu-- I mean why would you want to make it easy for people to KNOW and FIND what you have to offer!!! (if the potential customer can't find what you offer in first few seconds on the site, they'll leave)

8) Don't answer emails for days and days on end. Keep the customer waiting. (Answer emails within 24 hours- I mean would you like to sit on hold on the phone or stand in lines for days waiting for a cashier or a sales person)

And with that those are just a few ways to kill your online business instantly.

Avoid these and you'll do WELL!!!