Judging a Book by its Cover

And a website by its appearance

I recently gave a talk on website credibility, and asked the audience what was most likely to destroy their trust when they visited a website. Some of their responses were no surprise:

• Confusing (difficult to navigate)
• Broken links
• Music (that couldn’t be immediately turned off)
• No contact information

What did surprise me was how much the appearance of a website influenced their perceived credibility, and how highly appearance ranked in a Consumer Reports WebWatch study: a whopping 46% in the study "assessed the credibility of sites based in part on the appeal of the overall visual design of a site, including layout, typography, font size and color schemes." www.consumerwebwatch.org/dynamic/web-credibility-reports-evaluate-abstract.cfm

This aligns with studies done on “personal” appearances: 7% of a person’s impression of you is based on what you say, 38% on how you say it, and 55% on your appearance and manner. In some cases, on your website, they may never get to what you have to "say."
If your website doesn’t have a look that matches your image, visitors may assume—in as little as 3 seconds—that you are:

• a discount or “cut rate” company
• a hobbyist
• small and/or startup
• cash-strapped

Worried your website isn’t seen the way you think it should be? Contact KOB Designs for a free evaluation. If you need an update, we’ll tell you where and why.
 

What You Can’t See May be Hurting Your Business

Email has become a primary method of communication, so you’ve no doubt experienced “the mystery of the missing email” - you sent an email that never reached its destination. With the growing SPAM precautions, you may have been “blacklisted.” Here’s a quick way to check your IP Address against 147 DNS based blacklists.
http://www.mxtoolbox.com/

Survey SAYS….!

In the next week, we’ll be sending you a link to a survey, because we’d appreciate your feedback on our newsletters. I hope you’ll take just a minute to let us know what you think.