11 Reasons People Leave Your Website

You’ve put a lot of time and effort into building your website. And for good reason — it’s an important part of your marketing portfolio and helps you to build the bottom line.

With this in mind, it’s critical that your small business website keep new visitors on the site and not drive them away. Someone on the web looking for a product or solution has two options — visit your site and purchase from you, or, go to your competitors’ sites and buy from them.

In order to keep site visitors on your website, it’s important to understand the following 11 reasons people leave websites in general and to take corresponding corrective actions.

Lack of Clarity
People visit websites for a reason, with specific objectives in mind. If your home page does not clarify if the site visitor’s objectives will be met, many will leave.

Unprofessional Design
Shoddy design is a sure way to drive many site visitors off of your own site and instead to your competitors’ sites.

Poor Navigation
Complex or inconsistent navigation can lead to frustration, and web users are notoriously impatient.

Lack of Differentiation
If site visitors cannot tell how you are any different from their other online options, there is no compelling reason for them to stick around and buy from you.

Lack of Engagement
If your site has no forms of engagement (polls, surveys, user reviews, user-generated content, downloads, etc.), your site visitors may simply read some copy on your site and then move on.

Outdated Content
Outdated content signals a lack of attention to detail to site visitors. This of course is a big turn-off.

Links to External Sites
If your site provides a lot of links to external sites, expect people to follow them and to leave your site. Granted, it’s great to provide your site visitors with helpful, relevant information through links. Just know that there is a balance to be reached. Provide bookmarking tools throughout your site, and give people reasons to come back.

Ads
If you feel compelled to include ads in your site, whether Google AdSense or otherwise, expect some people to follow them and to leave your site. If you are a publisher with ads as the main revenue source, then of course that’s part of the business model. But if you are an online retailer trying to make an extra buck by including AdSense ads on your website, consider whether the ads are really helping you to maximize customers and revenue.

Slow Loading Pages
If your pages take more than 3 seconds to load, be aware that certain site visitors are going to get impatient and will leave your site immediately.

Lack of Calls-to-Action
A call-to-action is a directive for your site visitors. What should they do next? For example, a software firm’s website might include calls-to-action to download a free trial, access a whitepaper or signup for a webinar. If your site lacks calls-to-action, your site visitors may leave simply because they don’t understand what else they should do.

The Yawn Factor
If your site is boring, boring, boring, expect visitors to leave. There are just too many other options online for visitors to fight through a boring site.

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