You have made every effort to create your site, its design is perfect, and everything seems to be in place... However, visitors enter and leave your site without interacting with it. If you don't understand why people leave your website, then our blog today is for you.
Make sure your site is set up well. Below, our software development company will show you 8 of the most common reasons why people leave your website. Try to fix them to reduce bounce rate and get more traffic.
"You have three seconds to tell visitors why they should stay on your site." - Steve Krug, author of "Don't Make Me Think"
What is the bounce rate?
The bounce rate is an indicator of your visitor satisfaction. The higher the bounce rate, the worse it is for you because it means that the visitor didn't find what they wanted on your site. This can often be due to a lack of necessary information or because your site is too complex and has inconvenient website navigation.
How to calculate the bounce rate?
To calculate the bounce rate on your website, you need to take the total number of one-page visits and divide that figure by the total number of entries to a website.
Let's say you have 3000 visitors per month on your website, and the number of visitors who immediately leave the site is 1500. That means your bounce rate will be 50%.
Here’s a way to measure your bounce rate metrics:
- Good: 26-40%
- Average: 40-60%
- Poor: 60-100%
P.S. The bounce rate isn't always scary. For example, if you have a landing page that doesn't have any internal links and users went to it and did not go anywhere else, the indicator will be high. The main thing is that these visitors have fulfilled the action that you wanted.
8 Main reasons why people leave your website
Now that you know that bounce rate is a measure of your site's customer satisfaction, it's time to move on to looking at the main reasons people leave your website.
1. Your content is not optimized for search
If you want users to stay on your site longer and take some action, then you should create engaging content, promote it with relevant keywords, and relink blogs to each other. This way, users will get what they are looking for and spend more time on your blogs.
To fix this, you should take the time to create quality and relevant content and relink all your blogs to each other and optimize all texts and images for searches.
2. Your website is slow to load
If you have been putting off optimization of your site's performance, then the time has come to increase website speed.
Internet users will not wait for your site to respond — instead, they will leave. Slow websites are no longer competitive. It is good if your site takes 2-3 seconds to load. There can be many reasons why your site takes a long time to load; as every site is unique. The best way to find out what's wrong is to conduct a site performance audit of your site.
3. Lack of optimization for mobile devices
According to the latest data, 56% of traffic comes from mobile devices — more than half of all users search for information using their phones. We think this is an excellent reason to make your site responsive.
Everything that is on your site should be displayed well on various devices:
- your design
- site content
- navigation
- internal links
- multimedia files
According to the latest Google updates, if your site does not have a mobile version of the site, it will be shown below sites that do. Don't forget to take care of your site's responsive design so that the user does not leave the site.
4. Your website design is not attractive
Many businesses agree that website design is one of the main factors in why people leave a site. Outdated and unattractive website design makes people think that this site and its products are no longer relevant. We highly recommend redesigning your website from time to time — design matters.
5. Your site is Unsecured
It seems to us that everyone on the Internet already knows about the existence of an HTTPS certificate. However, we want to reiterate its importance.
Having an HTTPS security certificate means that your site uses strong encryption, which means your site is safe for users.
If you do not install this certificate, everyone who visits your site will see a message warning it is "not secure."
6. Your site navigation is inconvenient
The more convenient navigation you have on the site, the easier it will be for your visitors to find the information they need.
Site navigation is like a roadmap, helping users find where they need to go.
If it is difficult to navigate, the user will likely leave your site and go to your competitors. We would advise you to design navigation so that even children can use it.
"The best way to lose your website visitors is to make them think too hard." - Steve Krug
7. You have a bad call-to-action (CTAs)
If you do not understand why people leave your website, then perhaps this is due to the lack of a compelling Call to Action.
The placement of nudging CTAs can double your sales, provided they are properly positioned and phrased. Often, people need to be gently nudged to take a specific action.
Most often, CTAs are created to encourage people to:
- subscribe to newsletter
- buy something now
- contact us
When adding CTAs to your site, keep it simple and clear.
8. There is no online chat functionality
Online chat is now becoming a must-have. Often, before buying, people still have additional questions that they want to get an answer to. The easiest way for them is to write to your online chat because not everyone likes to communicate live.
The absence of a chatbot on the site is sometimes the key reason why people leave your website.
Adding a chatbot to your site improves interaction with visitors, increases customer service level, and reduces the bounce rate.
Tips to Keep Users on Your Website Longer
Below are the top tips to help you keep users on your website longer.
- Don't use spammy headlines
- Place call-to-action buttons at the beginning and end of every page
- Use engaging multimedia content
- Speed up your website
- Use an exit-intent popup
- Consider a suitable website design
- Add white space to your pages
- Use related-blogs
- Structure your content
- Respond to comments and questions
- Create a responsive website
To sum up
There can be many reasons why people leave your site — more than just 8. If you notice that the level of visitor dissatisfaction has increased, then it is time to review and redevelop your site.
Professional web development experts can help you with website optimization, website development, and web design. Also, you can always get a free site audit and find out in more detail what the problem is.
