“Skip this”

There, I said it. If you don’t have “Skip This” anywhere on your site, feel free to go back to your regularly scheduled day… unless you want to find out why, in my opinion, you should NEVER publish such words.

If you have the words “Skip this” published on your site, chances are you have a pop up window running some type of commercial – for a product or about your own practice or service.  This commercial, if professionally compiled, can be a great piece to your overall digital marketing campaign, but it does not belong as an “intro” on your website.  Why?

First the tech:  In most instances website intros are created using Adobe’s Flash.  Intro’s and pop ups created using Flash have security issues.  In February 2009 Adobe sent out a patch for Flash which allegedly took care of 5 known security flaws.  According to Brian Krebs, author of the Security Fix blog for The Washington Post: “A few of the flaws are critical, meaning users could have malicious software installed on their system merely by visiting a Web page that features a booby-trapped Flash movie.”

Next, using the words “skip this” means you obviously have content on your website that is so irrelevant you don’t care if your visitors see it.  Big Tip: that means it shouldn’t be there in the first place.

Moreover, why would you make visitors have to actively do something to get away from what you obviously perceive as something that they may not want to have to suffer through in the first place?  I say, if you are going to inspire clicking from your website, it shouldn’t be to get away from your annoying intro/commercial!

Last, you only have about 7 seconds to capture a website visitor’s attention – that 7 seconds shouldn’t be spent deciding if they need to see or close out of your intro.  Chances are if they chose “skip this” – they’ll just as likely select the red “x” and navigate away from your site altogether.

I say always consider your website’s visitors and never annoy them by placing anything on your site which requires you also to publish the words “Skip this”.

***

Join The Legal Connection for Working the Web Wednesdays

June 3 – Networking the Net

June 10 – Domains

Get more information and register for these FREE events here

***