We live in a world of short attention spans and multiple tab-browsing. The average use gives a webpage about 3 seconds of attention – if you don’t deliver the goods by then, they’re bouncing elsewhere. There’s just too much to see online to bother wasting time on subpar sites or content.
As a business owner, this is a startling reality. If your website isn’t engaging, you’ll quickly fall behind in the internet arms race. Low traffic and high bounce rates means less business for you.
Website struggles are one of the most common problems we help people with. If we’ve held your attention this long, then read on a little further – 360 shares 4 reasons why visitors hate your website, and how to fix them!
- Mobile design. The tipping point has been reached – more users are show searching for products and services on their mobile device than their desktop. As a result, poor mobile design is a big problem that can potentially turn away over 50% of your audience. A poor mobile design is also a very strong predictor of high bounce rates. Consider the needs of your audience, and decide between adaptive and responsive mobile design. Next, take an objective, first-person look at your font size and page navigation through your mobile device. Also keep the hyperlinking style in mind – does it open a new tab, or clutter my phone up with another Chrome window? 360 can help your business stay afloat in a mobile world – learn all about our responsive site design service.
- Click-bait. As an online marketer at 360, I find this personally offensive. There is certainly a degree of “artistic liberty” that you can take with your titles, but that doesn’t mean you should deceive your audience. Titles are meant to quickly inform users about the contents of a page or article, not lure them onto your site to resolve a cheap cliffhanger. Click bait translates to high bounce rates and low social media shares, and I’m glad! They’re the worst. Give your users high-quality, keyword-friendly articles. It’s the only way to engage your audience in a meaningful way. Since you provided something valuable, there’s also a much higher chance of social media sharing.
- Confusing content. Traffic is your end-game goal, but providing clear and relevant content should be your priority. Content that is poorly structured, loaded with spelling mistakes, or overly verbose will confuse and annoy readers. Much like a good title, a good piece of content delivers valuable information in a clear and concise way. Some companies stretch out articles and run sentences in circles, trying to trap users on-site with lengthy reading times. It’s a bad idea: while the average time-on-site metric will improve, leads will not.
- Slow load times. As we mentioned earlier, you are dealing with a 3-second window to engage your users before they start looking elsewhere. Many users will end up leaving your site before it even loads! 40% of people will abandon a site that takes longer than 3 seconds to load . Slow load times translate to low conversions and Google penalties.