7 Reasons Your Visitors Leave Your Website

According to a post on Time, one in every three website visitors spend less than 15 seconds on a page. Meaning, if you cannot capture someone’s attention in 15 seconds or less, your site visitors are more likely to leave and move on to a new website.

This can affect your website’s bounce rate. The higher the bounce rate, the more likely Google will assume that your site does not provide value and great user experience.

When that happens, your search engine ranking is doomed!

So, why do users leave your site and how can you fix it? Read on to find out.

1. Your Website is Running Slow

In his book Usability Engineering, Jacob Nielsen pointed out that the longer it takes for a website to load, the more a user feels that he is not in control. The user will tend to focus on his own train of thought and is likely to leave a website.

In fact, tracking system provider Tagman conducted a study with Glasses Direct. Based on the study, every one-second delay caused a 7% loss in conversions.

Moz have listed down some tips on how you can increase your site's page speed.

2. Outdated Design and Functionality

Just because your website is loading at lightning speed doesn’t mean everything is okay. A website that was haphazardly designed and lacks in functionality can also be frustrating.

According to Marielle Anya Nilsson, "The design of your website can either make or break the business you are trying to deliver. It actually makes a difference on how your target audience views your business or company and potentially turn them into your customers."

The following are common key points when designing a website:

• Navigation: A well-developed navigation makes it easy for users to understand and explore your website.

• Typographic Details: Site visitors tend to remember relatable and concise content. Ample amount of negative spaces allows them to rest their eyes while reading.

• Uniformed Branding: It is important that your audience can recognize your business brand across all types of medium.

3. Too Many Advertisements For some businesses, ads are one of the ways to monetize their website. However, this can negatively impact your site’s UX and UI.

Website visitors find advertisements intrusive, especially the full-page ones that require them to look for an "X" to remove.

In addition, intrusive online ads can kill your conversion. That’s because ads are call-to-actions on their own. And when they act upon an ad, they are not responding to your CTA.

As Sarah Peterson puts it:

"Advertising affects conversion and retention because it gives readers another option? to click a tantalizingly worded ad? instead of doing what you want them to do."

4. Distracting Autoplay Media Files

Multimedia content is useful when you want to reiterate your business’ unique value proposition. However, putting them on autoplay can be frustrating (and can even lead to heart attack).

Imagine you are on a subway train, you visited this site, and then you hear loud music playing all of a sudden. That could be embarrassing, right?

That’s why it is important to consider how you can incorporate multimedia content on your site without driving users away.

5. Lack of Website Security

As technology grows leaps and bounds, the more our information is put at risk. Sadly, the convenience brought upon by the world wide web can be a double-edged sword.

Hence, making your site secure is a must! Especially if your website asks for sensitive details such as credit card number (i.e. e-commerce sites).

According to Sytian Productions, a website design outsource in the Philippines, "Website security isn’t just some fancy addition to your website. Security is about keeping your data safe from perpetrators that can use the sensitive data on your site to perform illegal transactions on the web."

Nothing can turn off a website visitor who’s ready to shell out some cash more than an unsecured website.

Making your site secure can be as simple as installing an SSL Certificate. Other ways that you can secure your site are the following:

• Limiting a user’s login try (if applicable)

• Implementing two-factor authorization

• Updating your website platform

6. Website is Not Responsive

More and more people are accessing the internet on their mobile devices. That’s why your website should be mobile-responsive.

Otherwise, you will make it difficult for your website visitors to navigate through your site. That could also mean losing out on conversions on your part.

It’s not just because people will leave your site if it’s non-responsive, but also because Google implements mobile-first indexing.

In case you don’t know, mobile-first indexing is when Google will use the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking. So when your website is not mobile-friendly, or your mobile website lacks UX/UI consideration, your search engine ranking is likely to drop.

Check out Meghan Keaney Anderson’s post on HubSpot to learn how you can get started with mobile-responsiveness.

7. Confusing and Uninteresting Content

While there is no definitive research on how frequent you should post new content on your site, we cannot deny the fact that people is always on the lookout for the "latest."

To keep fresh content ideas flowing, take the time to build an editorial calendar. It can help you create a perfect content over a long period of time.

As for your old content, if you have any, it is advisable that you update them frequently.

When putting a website for your business, there are a lot of elements that you should take into consideration. Otherwise, you will be driving your site visitors away. Start tweaking and optimizing your website to drive more traffic and improve your conversion.

Kate helps businesses build effective processes for vetting ideal clients and building a business that doesn’t take every hour of every day.