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Readers.  Who needs ‘em.

How to Torment Your Readers and Drive Away Visitors

A Guide to Tormenting Your Readers

No one wants readers on their website.  This type of visitor is obnoxious and downright nosy!  Why are they doing all that reading anyway?  What’s their game?  Needless to say, if you have a website, this type of visitor needs to be deterred as quickly and efficiently as possible.  Here are some tips to get you started:

• Treat your readers like they’re stupid and you are all-knowing.  Obviously.  (What, you didn’t already know that?).
• Write your content in long, unreadable blocks of text. I shouldn’t even be breaking up this list with bullet points—it might encourage those rascally readers!  You need to create what I like to call a big “Wall o’ Text.”  If you can manage it, don’t even break up your writing into paragraphs.
• Hide your contact information. The last thing you want is people contacting you.  Never, ever, have an easily accessible Contact page.  You need to get crafty!  Try hiding your contact information deep, deep, within an About page.  Or, better yet, don’t have your contact information on your website at all!
• Install as many bells and whistles as you possibly can. You must, I repeat, must, do everything you possibly can to distract those pesky readers from actually reading your content.  Try having animated snowflakes or “glitter” constantly falling down the screen in front of your text.  And, if possible, transform your visitor’s mouse cursor into something silly—the more animated the better!
• Related to the above, make your site as slow to load as possible. Use high-resolution, slow-to-load images; as many complicated graphics as possible; and try to have several moving things on the page at once.  People hate to wait, making this one of the quickest ways to get rid of readers yet!
• Always use Windows Media Video (.wmv) files for your videos. Or any other unpopular video-viewing web format.  Just be sure to stay away from Flash or Quicktime.
• Broken links! The more the better.
• Have poor web navigation. Make everything a confusing mess.  And don’t make it easy to return to the main page.  If they want to get back where they came from, they’re just going to have to re-type your URL.
• Use pictures instead of text. Any time you have a button, make sure it’s a picture.  No text!  And try to make your pictures as vague as possible.
• Make them use their side-scroll. Use every single inch of space you have.  Make sure your content goes to the very edge of the page.  Make them put that side-scroll to work!
• Your website should be a Flash website. Flash websites are practically invisible to search engines.  If the readers can’t find you, then they can’t read your content!  How’s that for staying one step ahead!
• Ads, ads, ads! Flashing banner ads all over your site!  Or, better yet, use pop-up ads that your visitor can’t close or that load on every page—they’re an unforgettable classic for a reason.
• Write lots of copy over a large image. Combining “Wall o’ Text” with slow-to-load large images?  It’s the best of both worlds!
• Make your site compatible with only one web-browser. Be sure to include an incredulous error message.
• Dizzying color combinations. Your text and your background should clash as much as possible. Make your reader squint as much as possible.  Induce vomiting if you can.  Might I suggest using neon yellow text on a hot pink background?
• Music. It doesn’t matter if it’s “good” or “bad,” just so long as it loops incessantly and is difficult (or impossible) for the visitor to turn off.
• Choose a hard-to-read font. If they’re going to insist on reading your content after all your efforts to deter them, then you might as well make it as hard to read as possible.
• Send daily automated e-mails. So, none of your attempts to banish readers from your website have worked, eh?  Well, you’ll show them.  You’ll give them SOMETHING TO READ.  Every day, send them automated e-mails, filling their inbox with lengthy sales pitches and trivial nonsense.  Waste their space and waste their time.  That’ll teach them.

Readers.  Who needs ‘em.

How do YOU like to piss off your visitors and customers?

We’re always looking for new methods of creating a terrible online experience. If you have a technique that you think we should try, we urge you to share it with us below in the comments.