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I have a great example of this. I am a fan of, ‘The Ten Golden Rules Internet Marketing Podcast with Jay Berkowitz (tengoldenrules.com). He involves his listeners by having a call in line. I was listening one day in my car, and heard him say, give us a call for any comments….well, I decided to ring in and leave a message. Jay looked me up tweeted me, and told me I would for sure be on the next show. I was stoked! How did that make me feel? Awesome! And that is the point. Interact with your audience and make them feel important….and be sincere about it.

Years ago I listened to an audio tape (yes…I said tape) of Earl Nightingale. On the tape he said to, ‘Treat everyone you meet like the most important person in the whole world, because they are at that time.’ I listened and followed that statement. It has made all the difference in the world in connecting with people. So, I am sending a challenge out there to whoever reads this. Try to teat everyone like the most important person in the world…wether you are online, or offline…it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you make the connection, help someone out, and make them feel important. In doing so you will make more money, and have more happiness as a person.

#01 – Follow people who “tell” you they are your target followers. There are many “free” ways for you to find people who you think are your target clients. What you want to look for are people with specific keywords in their profile. I have been working on a clients twitter account. He has a nationally syndicated radio show and created audio interviews with many “older” rock stars.

We were able to start a good list of target tweeters by doing a profile search for people with keywords such as “dan fogelber fan” or “classic rock lover.” After several searches, we had a great list of tweeters to follow.

#02 – Follow people following others in your industry. One thing people don’t always understand is that if someone is following your competitor or others in your industry there is a good chance that they would follow you if you are sending better information and your tweets are valuable to them.

#03 – Make sure you are using hash tags in your tweets. Here is a great blog post about using hash tags to grow your following. Blogger Quick Tips – Hashtags are like Anchor Text or How to Get Twitter Followers Automatically.

#04 – Make sure EVERYONE knows about your twitter account. People can’t really follow you if they don’t know you are tweeting. I include my twitter address in my email signature, and in all of my other online profiles. I also tell my clients and friends to follow me on twitter to get great information.

#05 – Re-Tweet and get Re-Tweeted. I have found that re-tweeting others tweets and promoting other great tweeters builds credibility and makes it more likely you will in turn be re-tweeted.

1. The user must know what the site is about in seconds: attention is one the most valuable currencies on the Internet. If a visitor can not figure what your site is about in a couple of seconds, he will probably just go somewhere else. Your site must communicate why I should spend my time there, and FAST!
2. Do not use fancy fonts that are unreadable: sure there are some fonts that will give a sophisticated look to your website. But are they readable? If your main objective is to deliver a message and get the visitors reading your stuff, then you should make the process comfortable for them.
3. Do not use tiny fonts: the previous point applies here, you want to make sure that readers are comfortable reading your content. My Firefox does have a zooming feature, but if I need to use on your website it will probably be the last time I visit it.
4. Do not overuse Flash: apart from increasing the load time of your website, excessive usage of Flash might also annoy the visitors. Use it only if you must offer features that are not supported by static pages.
5. Do not use a homepage that just launches the “real” website: the smaller the number of steps required for the user to access your content, the better.
6. Use a simple navigation structure: sometimes less is more. This rule usually applies to people and choices. Make sure that your website has a single, clear navigation structure. The last thing you want is to confuse the reader regarding where he should go to find the information he is looking for.
7. Avoid intros: do not force the user to watch or read something before he can access to the real content. This is plain annoying, and he will stay only if what you have to offer is really unique.
8. Do not use harsh colors: if the user is getting a headache after visiting your site for 10 consecutive minutes, you probably should pick a better color scheme. Design the color palette around your objectives (i.e. deliver a mood, let the user focus on the content, etc.).
9. No horizontal scrolling: while some vertical scrolling is tolerable, the same can not be said about horizontal scrolling. The most used screen resolution nowadays is 1024 x 768 pixels, so make sure that your website fits inside it.
10. Do not use pop ups: this point refers to pop ups of any kind. Even user requested pop ups are a bad idea given the increasing amount of pop blockers out there.

These are 10 of the most annoying things I see on websites. It doesn’t mean that they can’t be used wisely. I have see flash used on sites where it was truly needed and it made a greater impact, but for the most part, these things should be avoided if you do not want to have a website that people want to leave as soon as possible.