When we talk about why visitors leave your website, there are many aspects to consider and work on. In the fast world in which we live today, there is a constant, and it’s the ever growing changes in all industries, and of course, the Internet falls into this. Let’s say that you have already built your website and you put a lot of efforts into it. You also worked your marketing in some ways to get traffic. You expect that people visit it, read it carefully, enjoy its content, and maybe buy from you some of your services or products, isn’t it?

But here’s the problem…

No one contact you, no one buy from you and then you might be wondering: Why is this happening to me? And then you check your visitors stats and you realize that the Bounce Rate is too high, what means that your visitors are spending just a few seconds in your website and then they leave. Well, let me tell you, you are not alone. In the following lines I am gonna tell you the solution to the serious problem of…

Why visitors leave your website

Today we have many blogs, videos and social media channels with tons of information. The most valuable resource that humans have is the time, and with it, it comes the attention. It’s hard to get people’s attention and to be focused on one thing.

So we have scarcely 10 seconds to attract and keep the attention of our readers. Despite that there are many reasons why our visitors leave almost immediately our websites, here I show you some of the most important ones. They are not presented in any special order.

01- Having a slow website

According to Forbes, “A single delay in your website loading time can result in 7% loss in conversion, and 40% of web users will abandon a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.” Having so many resources and options on the Internet, why you think your visitors will stick to your site if it loads slowly? If they really need something from your site, then they might be a little patient, but if they’re just looking around, or have clicked on a link on impulse, then they ‘re more likely to leave right away. Don’t make your users wait!

02- Not grabbing the user’s attention fast

Time is limited.

Users often leave web pages in 10–20 seconds, but pages with a clear value proposition can hold people’s attention for much longer. To gain several minutes of user attention, you must clearly communicate your value proposition within 10 seconds.

As users move fast through web pages, they have time to read only a quarter of the text on the pages they actually visit (let alone all the ones they don’t). So, unless your writing is extraordinarily clear and focused, little of what you say on your website will get through to customers.

However, while users are always in a hurry on the web, the time they spend on individual page visits varies widely: sometimes people bounce away immediately, other times they take longer than a minute.

03- Your Website Design & Readability

Believe it or not, people still judge a book by its cover and also a website by its appearance. When visitors access your page, the first thing that catch their eyes is your website’s design. Just like a saying that goes: “You never get a second chance to make a first impression”, first impression always matters, make sure it’s a good one!”

Although looking at the bigger picture, good content should have a higher priority when it comes to judging a website. The reality is that you could have the absolute best content and it won’t mean anything if you don’t have a good website design to complement it. Why? Because if it’s not presented in a pleasant way, I mean well designed and well structured, chances are that the visitors leave it before reading it. Again I say: At the beginning, people first judge by the external (how it looks), that internally (the real value it has).

Every design decision you make – from the fonts you use, their size, the colors of your text and background – will affect the user experience for better or for worse. It’s recommended that from time to time you upgrade your design in order to have some sense of freshness. That will help a lot your site.

04- Users leave your site when they don’t get what they expect

Don’t you ever try to mislead your visitors to believe you are something that you are not? We see that very frequently over the Internet, where most scammers use this technique to take the visitors to pages they didn’t ask to go. Pretending that they are real, they mask links, but at the end, they are fake. The result is that the user will leave their website and probably never come back.

05- Too much information

Users leave your site when they don’t know what to do. In many cases, the users feel overwhelmed due to the huge amount of information they find on some websites. A website can have tons of information, but the problem is when this material is presented in a reckless way.

Take the time to layout your sections with a good and simple design. Organize your content into sections and categories. Make it beautiful and cool. If you have a blog, make sure to include page navigations instead of the infinite scroll option.

06- Call to Action

Always use a clear CTA, which is a Call to Action. Remember: the main purpose is giving your visitors what they want, but also get from them what you want. It’s meant to be something mutual. If you want your visitors to subscribe to your mailing list, then make that the central focus of your page. Capture their name and email quickly.

Make it easy for the user to get what they want. Simplicity causes your website to stand out in a very good way. Again, your website can be very complex and full of valuable information, but if it’s presented in small chunks and in a very organized way, that will make your visitor come frequently to read more.

Think for a moment that Google is the website with more information on the planet and when you get to that search engine, it shows the logo, a search box and a couple of other elements. And when you search, it shows the information in fragments of results of 10 in 10, although if you look closely, in the top part it tells you the amount of results that it found, which usually are hundreds of thousands and in many cases, millions of results.

07- You are not genuine

The confidence factor is essential online. Today we see a lot of scammers or people that want to cheat others, they will never get loyal followers or customers. Try all the time to show how legitimate your website is.

People is smart and they will note it. But you have to help your visitors with that extra step of confidence. Try all the time to create an About us and a Contact us page. Provide in them as much information as you can for your visitors to contact you in case they need it. People must perceive that you want to help them. When you do it, you will have visitors that will bookmark your site to come back for more.

08- Too many Ads or Pop-ups

There is no doubt that advertising can make you produce more money, but use it in a smart way. Don’t overwhelm your users with ads wherever they go. Do not only limit the number of your ads, also determine the place(s) where they should be displayed. Remember, do not show ads as the first thing visitors see; do not prioritize them over content.

09- Auto-play Videos

Have you visited pages that as soon as they load, they immediately start playing a video? It’s very annoying. Visitors always want to be in control. They are the ones who decide when and if they want to watch a video or listen to an audio. Therefore, when they are instantly bombarded with an auto-play element of sounds and images without their consent, they tend to leave immediately.

This is a very frequently used tactic by marketers. And in some cases it gets even worse because now they tend to use a video that starts playing immediately and they remove the controls on it such as play/pause/stop buttons. In these cases, the user is unable to see even the length of the video. Then the only choice the visitor has is to watch it or leave the page. Please, don’t do this on your website.

10- Website with a non Responsive Design

People spend a lot of their time on mobile devices nowadays from doing business, checking emails, shopping or even playing games. It’s a must for any type of website to be optimized for mobile. Google penalizes your rank if your website is not optimized for different devices.

11- No Blog or Outdated content

No one wants to read the same newspaper twice. Although it’s hard to admit it, people will not come to our site if they don’t have a good reason to do it. If your website has the same information that it had 3 years ago, there is NO reason why your visitor or customer come back to it. You wouldn’t do it, so don’t expect your visitors to do it either. So, please, create a plan related to your industry that be helpful to your customers and start publishing information about it.

Remember, your visitors might become your customers in the future. Worry about them and provide small solutions for their problems in their area. If you are an aesthetic medicine doctor, try to write articles that orient and help your future patients in that field. I am web designer and create designs for my customers, and now I am writing this guides that I know can benefit anyone of my customers, just like you.

Start creating your Blog. Create high quality content for your readers. There are a lot of benefits of having a blog, and your visitors will really appreciate that you have one Blog and that you create fresh content with certain frequency. Furthermore, this helps to increase your traffic and search engines, like Google, can rank you better.

Always keep in mind that people are not looking for you. They are looking for the solution to their problems. That’s why they go to the search engines, 97% of the time they go to Google, and Google shows them the pages that have information relevant to that search, and in a special way, the blogs that deal with those problems and their solution.

12- Poor Grammar and Spelling

Whether you like it or not, people that writes with poor Grammar, typos and bad Spelling are sending several messages to their readers. Among them we have:

• Total disrespect for their readers
• It dilutes their message
• They muddle the meaning of what they want to say
• It shows them as reckless people
• Their opinion or word is perceived as of very Low Quality
• No matter if what they say is good, people will NOT respect them
• They have no authority

What is the solution to this problem?

Learn to write correctly. Don’t just pay someone to proofread your documents. Don’t depend on spell-check software as many people do. They might be helpful, but they are not error-proof. There are several methods that say that learning all grammar and spelling rules take less than 6 hours. So there are no excuses.

Let’s be honest, if we take a book in our hands and start reading it, chances are that it will be ERRORS FREE in Grammar, Spelling, typos, etc. This is something that automatically make us feel that we will not see problems related to this.

This give us a high level of confidence. The same kind of confidence you have to give to your readers by writing spelling and grammar ERROR free documents or articles. This will automatically enhance your authority as business owner or author. And on top of that, Google penalizes poorly written websites, not only technically speaking, but in a grammar context.

Remember:

Better writing, better results.

13- Having your website in only ONE language.

Internet is global. Try to have your website in more than one language. I suggest you to consider having also an English version of your site as it is one of the most commercial languages in the world. Having your website in multiple languages has a lot of benefits that you will perceive in the long run.

CONCLUSION

If you take into consideration all these tips and suggestions, you will have a website that is worth to visit time and time again. If you are serious about this, you will start implementing them right away. By doing so, and putting a special attention to point #11, you will engage with your visitors and your website will be perceived as trustworthy site.

If you have any question or need help, don’t hesitate to contact me.