While consumers may be purchasing less frequently than when the dollar was strong, e-commerce will remain important for many businesses, with Australian and New Zealand consumers showing the second highest rate of online sales conversions behind the US.

With more Australian consumers looking to local websites for their online shopping, should your business be thinking about offering your products online?

If you are unfamiliar with Doggo, it is a directory of dog parks, beaches and dog friendly accommodation throughout Australia. What makes Doggo different from the other pet directories out there is that it uses Google Map technology to let users search for locations within a particular search radius of a given address or location. Site users can also rate the parks, beaches or accommodation and leave comments to help others select the best place to go with their doggy mates.

We currently have over 700 locations in the directory and are in the process of adding lots more – so if you have any suggestions or would like to add a location head over to the submit page.

If you’d like to support Doggo the best thing you can do is spread the word! Tell all your friends about it, link to it, blog about it. . . why you can even sing about it if you want!

Some other tid-bits about the site:

• Doggo is now built completely on WordPress , demonstrating that WordPress can be used for much more that just blogging!
• You can subscribe to the Blog Feed, Accommodation Feed and Dog Park Feed to keep up-to-date with all the latest additions to the site .
• The site is now gravatar (globally recognised avatar) enabled – so if you’d like a pretty picture to come up when you comment on the site, head on over to gravatar.com to register .

10. Lack of clear contact information

You’d be surprised how many site visitors just want a phone number to call or an email address to contact. They may have additional questions about your product/service or want to make a booking/purchase. Contact information needs to be easy to find. Users are quickly frustrated if they cant find it, and will quickly leave your website. Make sure you also provide a few different contact options (ie. phone, email, web contact form, physical store/office).

9. Slow load times

Graphics that aren’t optimised for the web and complex web animations can cause websites to load slowly which is frustrating for users. Slow load times are particularly problematic for users who access the internet using a dial-up connection. While broadband use is becoming more common, in 2007-08, 17% of Australian internet users were still accessing the internet using a dial-up connection.

8. Having a horizontal scrollbars

Horizontal scrollbars are annoying for users as they make scanning your website difficult and require extra mouse clicks/movement to view your entire webpage content. Websites that are designed using appropriate screen resolutions will avoid the need for horizontal scrollbars.

7. Using “splash” pages (or false home pages) that require an additional click to enter the site

Users want information about your product/service and they want it NOW. Splash pages are usually totally unnecessary – all they do is frustrate the user by adding an additional page and mouse click before they can get to the information they really want.

6. Requiring the use of plug-ins

A plug-In is a piece of software that works in conjunction with a browser to display specific material (eg. animation, sound etc). If your visitor doesn’t have the required plug-in they will need to download and install it before they can continue using your site. Often people are unwilling to or do not know how to do this.

5. Broken links

This is just plain frustrating for users. They are expecting certain information to appear when they click on a link on your site and will be disappointed when instead they get a HTTP 404 Not Found error message.

4. Poor graphic design

The design of your site should be easy on the eyes. This means that text is easy to read (choose appropriate fonts and text sizes), images should be appropriate sizes, colour choice appealing, and layout consistent between pages.

3. Music/sounds that play automatically

Users like to be in control of their web browsing experience. Sites that automatically play sounds or music remove that control and can annoy web visitors. The music on your site is unlikely to be to the taste of all visitors. In addition, if the user is viewing your site in a public place (library, internet cafe) or at work, they may be embarrassed by the sudden sounds and elect to exit from your site immediately.

2. Out-of-date content

There’s not much point in having information on your website if its obviously out-of-date. Users see little value in information that they suspect is out-of-date or no longer relevant. Make sure price lists and contact information are always up-to-date. Consider integrating a blog onto your website as this is a great way to keep users updated with latest news and offers, and it keeps your content fresh (which search engines love).

1. Grammatical and spelling errors

Grammatical and spelling errors demonstrate a level of carelessness, which may leave users wondering if you are careless in other aspects of your business. Have a friend/colleague/family proof-read your website content, and consider signing up for a spellr.us account.