Let's face it: customers can be so annoying.  We could all get a lot more work done if it weren't for them.  You are kind enough to sell them your products or services; the least they could do is be grateful - but they act as if you are there for them and not the other way around!  As if they could survive without you, right?  Well, here are a few ways to teach them a little bit of humility and make them earn the chance to give you their money!

#10:  Make them wait a long time for your page to load.  This is like making your customers knock on the door of your store for five minutes before letting them in.  It proves they really want to do business with you.  This is especially effective for the 60% or more of Web surfers who do not yet have DSL (fortunately, most surfers will be stuck with Dialup connections until at least 2007!)

Gratuitous use of lots of graphics is one of the best and most basic ways to make your page take as long to download as possible.  The images you use don't necessarily have to depict anything that has anything to do with your product or service.  Find one of those CD's in a computer superstore that contains lots of photographs of models smiling evocatively at something off-camera.  And don't bother reducing the physical size of the images to get the file-size down, either.  All you have to do is set the height and width parameters smaller to make the image fit on your page, so that the file size of the actual image is still huge.  Images as they come straight from your digital camera are best - they can be several megabytes each!  After all, experts agree that Humans are visual creatures.  People just love pictures.  So they shouldn't complain if it takes a long time for you to give them lots of pretty pictures to look at while shopping with you.

Bonus: Once your page is done loading, make sure it still doesn't tell your customers anything!  The first page your customers arrive at on your site should just be your "Splash Page."  These are those really cool-looking, huge images that take up a whole page and when they are done loading, all they say is "click here to enter."  You can have a message display while this image is loading that says "please be patient while this image loads."  This way your customers will certainly be willing to wait any amount of time they have to in order to find out what you're selling.

Flash splash intro pages are even better, because they take even longer to load and, additionally, they incorporate Top Ten Way #8: "Make them download something extra before they can view your site."  Now, it is true that most Flash Splash pages these days do have a tiny link that says "Skip Intro" so that people don't have to wait, but it seems that almost everyone who is given this choice usually chooses to skip it.  Go figure.  After you paid all that money for your Flash Splash, you don't want people to miss viewing it.  Customers can be so unreasonable!  To force them to behave, you can make the "skip intro" link really hard to find, or else embed it in the Flash presentation itself so that they don't even see it until the intro is done downloading anyway.  (Note:  If by some chance your Flash contains actual information, make sure there's no other way on your site for customers to get that same information.)

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#9:  Tell your customers what browser they should use, as well as how they should set their browser and monitor resolution in order to make your site look the way you want it to look.   Most customers are not smart enough to know that the browser you chose to develop your site for, and the resolution at which you developed it, are really the best.  You will be doing them a service by educating them.  And if people don't like having to change their browser width and monitor resolution every time they go to a different site, they can just stop visiting anyone's site but yours, right?

This leads us to...

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#8:  Make them download something before they can view the information on your site.  Not just a browser or new browser version, but Flash viewers, PDF viewers, media players, word processors or spreadsheet programs, etc.  If a surfer lacks the computer savvy to download and install additional software, they aren't the kind of person whose money you want anyway.  Good customers won't mind the extra time and effort it will take, and the public library or place of employment from which they might be trying to visit your site won't mind in the least if everyone who uses their machines goes around downloading and installing new software on it.  They probably don't have any security settings in place that prevent users from installing software on their machines anyway.  And besides, all computers and browsers come with these plugins to begin with, don't they?  Sure, MacroMedia and Adobe and Quicktime etc. are always coming out with new versions that make the old versions obsolete, which forces the public to visit their sites frequently to get the latest upgrades, but don't worry, all those attractive ads and fun features at the download sites won't really distract your customers or make them forget what they wanted at your site to begin with.

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#7:  Make your customers have to hunt hard for any information they find on your site.  This proves that they are really serious buyers.  Some effective ways to do this are:

• Use  artsy graphic links that the user has to mouse over before they have any idea what the link leads to (or even whether or not it's a link!)  Actually you don't even have to give them a clue then - just make them click to find out where it goes.
• Be sure to use only picture links, and never provide alternative text-link navigation.  Text links are just too old-fashioned and uncool.  If you must use them, use fancy style sheets to make sure the links are not obviously links, that is, make sure text links are not underlined, and do not use a different color font for visited links.
• Change the navigation scheme for each page.  This forces the customer to really look around each of your pages to find out how to get somewhere or how to get back to the page they came from.  As you've learned, yourself, while stuck in long lines at a grocery store: the longer they're stuck there, the more they'll probably buy, right?
• Bury the information they really want under several layers of links, by dividing it up into as many granular categories as possible.  There should be a minimum of five clicks before they even get close to what they're looking for.  This is especially effective if you keep Top Ten #10 in mind for each page they have to drill down through!  You will know you are successful if, after they have drilled all the way down, many customers discover that they were pursuing a blind alley and now have to drill all the way back up again.
  
  Bonus:  Place everything in Frames so that they can't even use their back button to get back to where they were!

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#6:  Use specific font sizes, not relative font sizes - and whatever font size you dictate, make sure it is tiny. Tiny fonts are so much more cool-looking, and you can get more text on the page that way (leaving more room for images, too!).  It's just appalling that even our most modern browsers actually allow the user to make their fonts larger or smaller on their screens to suit their own monitors or visual deficiencies.  This could mess up your carefully planed layout!  And if you are scrupulous about following the concepts in this article, your layout will be the only thing about  your site that will be attractive to the customer.

Fortunately, there are several tricks that deprive your customers of choice and force them to read your font in the size YOU specify.  Most visual web-page creation software does this automatically, including MS Front Page, DreamWeaver, Publisher, etc.  Be sure to always use these kinds of applications to create your pages.  Use of Style Sheets is also great, because it not only forces the viewer to use your specified font size, but also disables all those tacky Accessibility options most browsers provide, which allow customers with visual difficulties to change the font face and color schemes as well!  You know better than they do what's right for them, and besides, people who don't have 20/20 vision probably don't have any money to spend anyway, right?

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#5:  Hide huge PDF's behind innocent-seeming links, and don't warn your visitors that the link leads to a PDF and, by all means, do not let them know in advance the size in bytes of said PDF!   They don't  need to know these things.  Everyone loves PDF's.  Sure, your information would have been just as easy to display in HTML, but if you had done that, somebody could change the layout and alignment, and you can't have that.  If you have carefully adhered to Top Ten Way #8 you already have lots of your information embedded in PDF format.  Visitors to your site will be delighted when they click on a link that they thought was going to take them to another web page, only to find that their hard drive now begins to grind and they have to wait while their PDF-reader starts and then slowly downloads your document for their viewing pleasure.  PDF's are difficult read on the screen, so they will have to print your document out to be able to digest it properly.  Voila!  A permanent record of your page now exists in the world, ready to help keep those landfills full!

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#4:  Assume your visitors have come to your site to be entertained, not to buy your products.  People just have 'way too much time on their hands, and are not very goal-oriented.  So don't bother focusing on the services or products you have to offer them.  Instead, let them know how cool you are by

• Filling your page with lots of animation.  It doesn't even have to depict your product.
• Have music automatically start when they arrive.  People just love music, including bosses and co-workers in the next carrel.

PS:  Don't forget all the good advice in Top Ten #10 about including Flash presentations in your page!

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#3:  Insult your customers' intelligence.  Remember: gullible people are probably capable of getting better jobs and therefore have more money to spend on what you offer.  Besides, there are so many of them!  So make full use of deceptive gimmicks such as advertising banners that look like dialogue boxes, and maniacally flashing messages screaming "You are visitor #349702, click here to claim your prize!" to every single visitor.  People always fall for these gimmicks, and it makes them think you are so clever and classy that they will want to be sure to always do business with you.

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#2:  Pop open lots of new windows, not just the moment someone arrives on your site, but every time they click a link.  It will show that you really know how to program HTML, for one thing, and you can present a new advertisement with each click.  There are even ways to pop open new windows every time someone closes one of your popups and when they try to leave your site!   If you bombard people hard enough, they will eventually give in and buy something.  

Sadly, people aren't smart enough to know what's good for them, so they are foolishly finding newer and better ways each day to defeat popup windows and even stop them from opening in the first place, but they really shouldn't have the right to do this.  Their computers have lots of resources, don't they?  They shouldn't have to mind closing all those extra windows.  So keep on top of all the new developments in internet technology that allow you to defeat your customers attempts to defeat your popups.  It's war out there, and if you defeat your customers, they will send you their money!

PS:  Don't forget to incorporate Top Ten Ways #10, #4, and #3 into each popup window to make them extra effective!  Also don't forget to include...

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#1:  Ignore web surfers' so-called "right" to privacy.  If they want privacy, they should stay off the web.  The web is designed to make you money, and if you need to collect information about your customers in order to make money, then you have every right to do it.  You are under no legal obligation to care what your customers may or may not want.  You are the merchant, here, and your customers are only customers - YOU should be the one calling the shots.  Customers who whine about their privacy have no right to purchase your fine products or services anyway.

So be sure to track every bit of information about your customers that you can.  Make some extra money while you're at it by filling your page (and don't forget the Popups from #2!) with tracking cookies for other advertisers that you can connect with via Ad Banner Services.  Many of these wonderful advertising services have even discovered subtle ways to load spyware onto your customers' computers without their consent!  Why customers don't just willingly consent to these thoughtful attempts to help serve them by analyzing their needs is baffling - many customers are even paying good money for software that attempts to defeat spyware!  Obviously they are incapable of deciding for themselves what's right for them, so it's not just your right but your duty to disregard their wishes and "serve" them against their will.  They will appreciate you for it in the end!

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If you feel that the above tactics might only serve to hurt your business, you might look into KrystalRose Designs' Ten Commandments of Good Web Design instead.
Or you can contact us to learn how we can help you avoid any of the pitfalls - er, sorry, design strategies - above!

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