Reasons Why Visitors Leave Your Website

Your Website Is Too Slow

According to Kissmetrics, around 47% of visitors expect websites to load in under two seconds and 40% will find an alternative if the site takes over three seconds to load. Before looking at more studies that involve loading speed, you need to understand the expectations of visitors within the loading time. Jakob Nielsen, in his book, Usability Engineering, breaks down the important time limits occurring in delays between a user’s action and a response.

• 0.1 second. In cases where an application responds almost instantaneously to the action of a user, there is a direct manipulation image. In most cases, users will think that the responses were generated by their actions and not by a computer. This direct manipulation element is important in a user’s engagement.
• 1 second. This time will create a feeling of a computer generating results instead of a user. While this is the case, they will still be focusing on their thoughts. This means they will still retain the sense of being in control, although, on a lower scale. If it’s a web page, it should take 1 second to load so that users have a sense of control and feel they can navigate your site easily and freely.
• 10 seconds. This is a long period that will take away any feeling of control users might have left. Their minds will mostly wander and, in most cases, they will leave the website. If your site takes 10 seconds or more to load, giving an indication of the progress will go a long way in helping the situation. This is because users will know exactly what to expect and not wait blindly.

It does not matter how fresh or how interesting the content on your website is, people will always get tired of waiting for it to load. If your competitors have fast sites, your users will go there.

Ranking sites like Google always consider the speed at which your site loads. Google is pro users and this means it is always looking for sites that give the users a great experience. Loading speed is an important factor in a user’s experience, which explains its importance in Google ranking.

Consider these numbers shared by the Chief Executive Officer of Mraen Corporation in a LinkedIn post. Amazon carried out an analysis of its web performance in relation to sales using A/B tests. They found a 1% decrease in conversion for every 100-millisecond delay in loading. Walmart reported a 2% increase in traffic on their site with a reduction in loading speed of 1 second. Each time load time decreased by 100 milliseconds, there was a 1% increase in conversion.

According to multiple studies, the period people wait for a website or page to load is becoming shorter every day. Web users are becoming increasingly impatient, which means that any slight delay will see them leave your website and find an alternative that most probably belongs to a direct competitor.

Your Website is Not Responsive

Responsive websites are ones that adapt to different screen sizes and devices that include desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile phones. Given that a significant number of people use mobile devices to get online, it’s crucial for your website to be responsive. If it’s not, you may expect a large chunk of visitors to leave without performing desired actions.

There are various reasons why users leave websites that are not responsive, and here are the main ones:

• Poor user experience. A website that is not responsive is typically difficult to navigate on a mobile device, which then leads to a poor user experience.
• Slow loading times. If you don’t optimize your website for mobile devices, it might take longer to load on a mobile phone or tablet. This can be frustrating for its visitors.
• Inconsistent design. Non-responsive websites tend to have inconsistent designs across different devices. This might make it difficult for users to find what they need.
• Difficult to read. Non-responsive websites might have text that is too small or difficult to read on mobile devices, often requiring users to zoom in and out.
• Limited functionality. It is common for non-responsive websites to have limited functionality on mobile devices. In such instances, users might find it challenging to complete certain tasks or access different features.

Problems With Website Layout

If your website has a disorganized structure, you might be dealing with a high bounce rate quite often. A quick revamp can deal with a number of problems. Always keep in mind that most people will just scan through the content and not read everything word for word. During their short stay on a website, they expect to be in a position to grab the key elements in the content without struggling. The elements they gather through their scans play a crucial role in the decisions they make next.

There are many principles in web design and not implementing them might be the reason behind people leaving your website too soon. For instance, if you have a visual hierarchy, it is a clear indication to users that you want them to prioritize some content on the page.

William Hicks, through the popular Hicks’ law, explains that users’ reaction rate is direction proportional to the options you present to them. If you have a blog that carries a significant number of articles, having a filtering system will eliminate distractions and give your audience a chance to find what it’s looking for in a quick and easy manner.

The Auto Play Problem

For most visitors, videos that play on their own are irritants. A visitor then focuses on finding and closing the video or the tab with the video. As you build your website, make sure you think about where visitors will be when they land on your website. If they are not in the comfort of their homes or are in places where watching videos is inappropriate, chances are they will close that tab and forget about your site.

At all times, you need to take into account how much control means to users. When a video plays on its own, it takes away this control. For example, if visitors to your website are listening to music when they land on the first web page, you might give them a good reason to close your site, which could then translate into a high bounce rate and no conversion. If something is playing, it’s important that you give a user an obvious place to pause the video or audio. The best thing is to avoid these elements completely. If you have to have them, it is a good idea to give control to the user.

If you want to know how annoying auto play can be, look at the case of Facebook. After 24 hours of launching auto play ads, there were millions of searches related to how to block the annoying ads. If you do your own research, you might find a connection between users staying and leaving a website in relation to auto play content. There are many people who find them irritating. Instead of finding where they are playing to pause them they might simply leave the website or close down the page.

Boring Content

To get visitors to stick around, you need to create interesting content that will keep them glued to the screen. Most people concentrate on the homepage and forget all about the other pages. Incidentally, most visitors do not enter a website through this page. Statistics show that people find websites through search engine results, links on other sites, and social networks.

The truth is that the homepage is no longer the center of attraction like it was a while ago. Blogs and articles are the go-to solutions for many content creators and they play an important role in content marketing. This tells you that each page should be up-to-date and compelling enough to keep visitors on the site for increased engagement.

You should strive to provide neutral content that does not include complex words. People don’t want to read jargon because it will confuse them. If you are selling something, explain what it is and how the user may benefit from it using simple words. A thorough article will do a lot of good, not only in keeping visitors on the site, but also in their purchase-related decisions. If visitors to your website can relate and react to its content, you can rest assured that the conversion rate will always be on the higher side.

Dormant Blog

Having an inactive blog is another big reason why visitors leave your website as soon as they arrive. Simply put, if your visitors have nothing fresh to read, they will leave. They might check your blog one more time and if they still find nothing, they might leave and never return. As a result, you might want to consider coming up with posting schedules and sticking to them.

While there is no study that indicates the perfect frequency of posting, it is important that you avoid keeping your visitors waiting for too long. In some scenarios, posting too often can actually be irritating for your target audience. This might also result in filler content that most visitors do not like. If you post less often, your readers might visit a competitor’s website that offers fresh and relatable content. Bear in mind that you’ll have a hard time maintaining a loyal following if they have nothing to read.

Absence of Contact Information

Data shared by Zippia indicates that 44% of users leave websites that don’t provide contact information in the form of email addresses, phone numbers, or contact forms. What’s also important is that users should be able to find your contact details with ease, and you need to provide it in a clear, concise, and easy-to-understand manner.  Providing contact information is important because it helps establish trust among visitors to your website. Not paying attention to this aspect might lead to high bounce rates, which is never good for any business.

Conclusion

The goal of a website owner is to attract traffic. However, this is not enough if the visitors do not stay long enough to get the information they need and perform desired actions, like making a purchase. You need time to convince web users to do what you want, and you may achieve this by keeping them on your website for longer.

Now that you know the reasons why visitors leave your website, you may make the necessary adjustments to prevent a high bounce rate. If you’re still not sure about what to do to keep visitors from leaving your website, seeking help from a digital agency with expertise in web design might work well for you.

Remember that people visiting your website don’t do so with the aim of leaving in a few seconds, they are looking for solutions and you need to provide them in a quick and efficient manner.