Update: I can’t fire my blog now, I’m giving it a chance to grow, worth it?

by whlooi | Filed under BSL5.com, General, Interesting, KeyEll(Kuala Lumpur), Networking.

What are the symptoms? What are the warning indicators of an unprofitable website? In my previous post on I can’t fire my blog now, I’m giving it a chance to grow, worth it? , if the site is underperformed, you would have to stop dumping your time and money on it. But how are you to know that your site is sick? Here are the symptoms that drive your reader/customers away:

Symptom 1: Selling To Everyone Means You Sell to No One
If you do not target your content, it will confuse your readers. People are not patient. In a recent survey, 73% of people claimed to be “insanely busy”. If you do not develop a target visitors profile and appeal directly to them, you will lose them. And they will never come back to your site again.

Symptom 2: Web Flea Market: Buy a Web Site or Get a Grocery Coupon
People are selling Web Sites, classified advertising, pre-paid legal services, long distance phone cards, and reminder services via affiliate programs…All on the same Web Page!

Think about that the next time you go to your grocery store. Do they offer to sell you a Web Site with your pickles? Flea markets diminish the value of what you are selling. Most people who own these sites tell me they depend on selling a high volume of low price items. How do I know this is a doomed approach? Visit their sites and see if there is any life there.

Symptom 3: Huge graphics that make your site take 30 seconds to open, which is all the time you have to sell your customer on staying.
The worst thing about computers is that they enable us to do things we just should not be doing. Graphic design is a skill; most people get some Paint program and have absolutely no sense of size, or what the graphic makes them look like. If you want to SCREAM AT YOUR AUDIENCE AND BE OBNOXIOUS, then use big graphics. (refer to here to speed up your site loading time)

Symptom 4: This site has XXXX number of visitors (How many bought?)
Does it really matter to anyone how many people visit your store? The sure sign that a store is visited often is the success and profits of the owner. All the rest is empty bragging.

Symptom 5: Explaining what technology you use, frames, etc.
As I mentioned before, to this day it amazes me how people explain the technical design of their Web Page. If you use any reference to technology, you are distracting your readers. Keep it as simple as possible. Take a look at wikipedia.org, how simple there are.

Symptom 6: Download the following plug-ins to get this site working.
No one will spend ten minutes downloading the plug-in to see your fancy decoration unless being forced to. Especially nowadays for internet security concern, will you download them from a first-time visit website? Avoid plug-ins, with the possible exception of Real Audio.

Symptom 7: No place to send an email, or gain a free report.
After spending all this time to create a site, most website owner forgets to ask for inquiries. They just think people will work hard to contact them. Assume that a person will visit your site once, and never return unless you remind them to via email. That is why blog platform is much more convenience then conventional CMS in the market.

So, have your site showed any of these symptoms? Better adjust and improve them before they drive your readers away. Cheers.