Guy Kawasaki is an Internet evangeliest. He has been a booster of computing and online business since the mid 80’s when he first was immersed in tech working for Apple. Flash ahead twenty years and several successful start-ups later, Guy Kawasaki heads a highly respected venture capital firm, Garage Technology Ventures, a technology investment firm he helped found in 1998. Today he is best known for his lectures, keynote speeches and his series of Internet business related books. He is currently promoting his latest book, The Art of the Start which, as he wrote yesterday, “… reflects my experience as an evangelist, entrepreneur, investment banker, and venture capitalist.”

Guy posted an interesting essay on his blog yesterday, one that should be read by anyone involved in the website design and search marketing sectors. Titled, “Top Ten Stupid Ways to Hinder Market Adoption“, the post points out several common items found on sophisticated websites that turn visitors away.

In the post, he mentions a few obvious things such as limiting contact options to Email and writing code that works in IE but fails in Firefox, Macintosh browsers, Safari and Opera. He also mentions a some subtle user-annoyances like difficult to read confirmation codes and ultra-long URL strings.

In all, Guy offers 14 points to consider when thinking about upgrading a site or introducing new and improved user functionality to a site. I think this item is a “must read” for most web designers and search marketers because we are, or should be, moving beyond providing high ranking sites. Our job as website designers and marketers is also to help our clients create conversions and build their businesses. The ability to offer time-tested advise based on simple, common sense best practices, is in the long run, the greatest service we offer as SEOs, SEMs and website designers.

Thoughts on usability and site-visitor experience are keystones to good service.

(hat-tip to Lisa Barone from the Bruce Clay Blog)