Top 10 Reasons People Leave Your Website And How to Fix Them

Here are the top 10 reasons people leave your website and what to do to turn the tide back in your favour, increase traffic, and encourage that traffic to linger long enough to engage fully with your site.

You have a website. You have website traffic. But when customers visit your site, it seems they leave in a hurry. Why?

Top 10 Reasons People Leave Your Website

1. Which way do I go?

This should never be a problem your traffic encounters. Just as a literal road system has a clear navigational direction, your website navigation should be clear and conspicuous. No one browsing your site wants to have to work to figure out where everything is.

Solution: Ensure that your site is designed logically and intuitively. Group navigation instruction in a central place, or add a site map if necessary.

2. Enough with the ads!

While having several ads on your site is reasonable and preferable, you must avoid bombarding your customers with poorly timed and ill-placed ads. Pop-ups can easily be a turn-off for customers.

Solution: Place ads discreetly. Use tasteful, non-eye-irritating ad formats instead of flashy, intrusive ads.

3. What did that even say?

Confusing content is a definite turn-off for customers. Wading through fluff and irrelevant information is usually deemed not worth the time.

Solution: Make your content relevant, engaging, and above all, easy to find. Group similar topics together. Consider boldening your headlines and highlighting the critical text so your customer can quickly skim the information and zero in on what interests him/her.

4. What’s with all the unwelcome noise?

For some customers, audio or video automatically loads is a huge turn-off. Additionally, loud volume is annoying to customers. No one likes to be yelled at.

Solution: If you feel that your story is best told in audio or video format, make that a choice for your customer. Never force customers to listen automatically. As a general rule, customers prefer to specifically choose whether they will hear audio, watch video, or simply read the content.

5. But I don’t want to register!

Making registration a requirement before sharing any content is a turn-off for some customers. Customers often want at least a sneak peek of what they are getting into before a registration commitment.

Solution: Like providing appetisers before a meal, offer customers a taste of good things to come before prompting them to register. Moderation is key here. Avoid providing too much information. Provide just enough to pique their interest.

6. This…is…so…boring.

The purpose of your website is to stimulate interest. If your content is boring and your site provides little or no motivation for your customers to interact with your company, your website is virtually useless. (Yes, that pun was intended.)

Solution: Ensure that your website prompts engagement in some way. Even minimalist websites must contain some utility if they are to be effective. Add engaging content in the form of regular blogs, forums, or special features that are continually updated. Good content keeps customers coming back for more.

7. Do I need glasses, or what?

If your website contains typos, has eye-straining colours or fonts, or is generally physically hard to read, customers will exit in droves.

Solution: Make careful use of font style and colour choice. If possible, consider hiring a professional design firm to handle your layout. This investment in design talent will likely pay for itself quickly in terms of increased traffic and conversion rates.

8. Didn’t I read that same thing last week?

Research indicates that customers often visit your site multiple times before making a purchase. If your forums, business blog, and featured items never change, customer interest will quickly wane.

Solution: Pepper your site with continually fresh content. If you need help to keep content fresh, there are many ways to get it. Consider working with an agency or content provider to keep things fresh. Add a new section to your website where you can update visitors quickly and easily about the latest news and trends for your product or services.

9. How long is this going to take?

Slow load speeds on your site will stop conversions in their tracks. It is estimated that for every additional second it takes to load your web pages, there is a 16 percent drop in customer satisfaction.  40 percent of customers will leave a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. 47 percent believe that a website should load in 2 seconds or less.

Solution: There are a variety of things to do that can speed up your website. Some of them include:

• image optimisation
• reduction of site plug-ins
• minimisation of HTTPS requests
• reduction of server response time
• enabling of compression
• enabling of browser caching
• prioritisation of above-the-fold content

10. Why doesn’t this work with my device?

Customers are increasingly turning to their mobile devices to access websites. If your website is not mobile responsive, customers will likely leave in a hurry.

Solution: When possible, choose a responsive design for your site. Consider the possibility of a mobile app as well.

Working All Angles to Achieve Stellar Results

Designing your website well is the key to success. Ensuring visitors have an enjoyable, immersive experience will drive customer engagement and upward conversion rates. If you would like help with website design, please contact us.

As specialists in website design and digital marketing, we can work with you to promote your brand in the optimal way to achieve your desired results.