There are many "experts" out there willing to pull all kinds of shenanigans to get visitors to their site and increase their stickiness upon arrival. Unfortunately, once you get beyond that particular circus you can find their site's a disappointment. Later I'll share with you what it takes to keep those website visitors coming back and how not to be a let down to them but first, the first impressions that quickly become last impressions for me. Here's my pet hates, the things that make me squirm in my chair when I set my cyber foot on their website.

Lights, camera, action!

There's the visual overload of terribly elongated, complex Flash intros. It's obvious the webmaster has this recurring fantasy where Spielberg's weeping at 3am, wondering why he didn't think of that. The fact that many website users are still on dial up connections worldwide is of no concern to him whatsoever. He just wants to show off his masterpiece, with no "skip intro" option sullying it. And he does. For all of three seconds on my monitor. Nice loading bar though.

Alternatively I can scorch my eyeballs. The method? By viewing lengthy pages of scarlet screeching inch high typography. It yells insistently at me. "You must do what I do or you'll be a bum for the rest of your life, you moron!" - inevitably followed by at least five exclamation marks of course - or some similar rant. Designed to instill fear in my very psyche for a life gone terribly awry, these sites flash by as a mere flicker on my subconscious. When I accidentally stumble into one I exit immediately, before you can say "but wait!".

To tactics such as these, I am in fact immune. I am! They neither impress nor scare me. Eye candy doesn't entice me to hang around a website. Neither does telling me what an idiot I've been up until now and only you can save me from myself and a life of mediocrity (and luckily for me, at a special reduced price today only!).

I write. It's what I do. So obviously I like to read well written, interesting work. Visuals alone really don't float my metaphorical boat. What I want are words to savor that either entertain, enlighten or educate me on some level. I want my computer to be a gateway to that elusive kernel of knowledge that I didn't have the millisecond before I read it on some fantastic website. It may even be yours.

Is your site top of the heap or the scrapheap?

It's been said many times in the webmastering world - content is king. Once you strip away all the flashy, dazzling, shout-it-out-loudness of your graphics and text, is your content king? Or is it the poor relation?

Every webmaster that's honest enough to admit it has had that nagging worry at the back of his mind. "Is my site content good enough?" That's of course a matter of perception, what with one man's meat being another man's poison and all that. There are however a few guiding questions a webmaster can ask themselves when in doubt.

• Does your content encourage the reader to hang around? That's a biggie. Put yourself in the shoes of a brand new visitor to your site. Is there an appealing layout? Is the web page well structured and easy to navigate? Can I find what I came for and more? If not your visitor will move faster than your Uncle Fred when dinner is served but unfortunately straight out the door. Think about how long you take to decide you'll stay awhile on a website. Five seconds? Twenty maybe? Whatever it is, it's not long. Which brings me to my next point.

• Is the prime content right at the front? And if not, why not? This may indeed be up for debate by some but to me it's a no-brainer. I know some webmasters like to hide the good stuff way, way in the back and make you go foraging for it. They have this vision of you adventuring your way through their site, sifting through page after page of not so great content in anticipation of getting to the REALLY good stuff!! Me, I don't think that happens. The reality is the visitor never gets to the excellent, top of the heap, well crafted content. Why? Because they assumed from reading the first few pages of your writing that it would all be like that, rated it as nothing special and off they went. Never, ever underestimate the importance of keeping that visitor around. To do that you want to showcase your optimal content as soon as you can and as well as you can. Then and only then do you stand a chance of him meandering a while longer.

Ask yourself this.

• Are you giving your website visitors value? Let me share an example here of what I do not consider value. I detest seeing a webpage where there's maybe two two-inch wide paragraphs of true content slap bang in the middle of the page. That's it. The remainder of the website page is crammed with ads. The webmaster surrounds every spare inch of what they laughingly called an article or blog post and swamp what minuscule content there is entirely. Now I understand that webmasters and bloggers want to monetize their sites, of course they do. But to do so to the detriment of your site itself is a pointless and fruitless labor.

Speaking from a visitor's point of view, one word describes how I feel about sites like that: cheated. I have another. Hoodwinked. Because I went to the site expecting more. Your duty as a webmaster is to always give more than is anticipated if you want visitors to return. No amount of showy graphics can ever hide the lack of substantial, useful content no matter how much you dress it up. If you feel your own writing doesn't make the grade, then employ someone to help you create enticing, energetic web content.

• Respect your visitors and their opinions. Don't see them as a number of page views or how much traffic you can glean from them visiting your site and telling their friends. These are living, breathing people who had literally billions of webpages and millions of websites at their disposal and yet they chose to visit little ole you. For that alone, you should be grateful and welcome their input. This is my final point but probably the most crucial.

Remember: dudes and dames, not dollars.

Keep in mind the people you're developing your content for rather than getting carried away in the latter stages by how much money you can make and your website cannot fail to thrive. Your visitors will pay you back a thousandfold by returning again and again and again. Traffic will rise and quality will rise because of their feedback. All will be right in your cyber kingdom. Content is king! Always has been and always will be. Because no matter how you get them there, nothing else will make them stay the way superior, attention grabbing content will. Not even glittery text. Happy surfing!