You’ve nailed your product, you’ve just launched a site, and you’re getting a rocking number of visitors. But why the hell is no one sticking around? You check your stats and your bounce rate is through the roof: this means people are hitting the home page but are bailing fast. Here, we give you 5 reasons why users might be leaving your website:
Load time
Website users are not patient people. If a site takes more than just a few seconds to load, the chances are your visitors are going to go elsewhere. Optimum load times are essential if you want to retain your audience.
Weak messaging and lack of engaging content
Web browsing is all about expectations. Your visitors will be coming to your website in the hope that you will offer a product or service that they are looking for. Therefore, you need to convey what it is you do in just a few words.
If that expectation is thwarted – for example, if you use vague jargon, overcomplicated descriptions and irrelevant imagery – your audience will become confused and may well leave your site. Similarly, the content needs to be engaging. If the imagery isn’t great or the copy is badly written, users will find better stuff to look at elsewhere.
Too much choice
Have you ever browsed a website that is so visually overwhelming that you don’t know what to do? This happens all too often, and usually results from an inability to prioritise information or to sharpen your offer.
The best website journeys start simple: a clear message, one to two images, and one call to action (e.g. a button saying ‘sign up here’, ‘read more’ or ‘buy now’). Without this streamlining, you will lose your visitors within a couple of seconds.
Poor navigation
Websites are designed to signpost a visitor’s journey from A to B, and for service/product providers, this is a journey that should end with an enquiry or a purchase. Make sure your navigation menu makes sense, prioritises the right information and makes it easy for visitors to find what they need.
Don’t create routes that lead your visitors down the wrong path or, worse still, in circles. Also, think about the number of clicks that visitors need to make to get to the end result – this must be short and intuitive.
Lack of familiarity
Everybody wants to be unique and stand out. But in the case of web design, caution is advised. Web users have internalised cues and intuitively know how websites should work. Therefore, reinventing the wheel just to be different can alienate visitors. Make sure that designs use familiar elements and that the journey makes sense. An intuitive experience is everything.
So, to re-cap: make sure your site is quick and easy to navigate, the content rocks, and everything feels nice and intuitive. If your product or service is good enough, and you manage to hit all of these points, you should be on to a winner!
If you need more detailed advice on why users might be leaving your website, feel free to drop us a message.