You’ve checked your web analytics and it seems many people are visiting your website, but few are converting into sales. You’ve got the traffic, but can’t figure out why people leave your website?
You’ve written some compelling copy for your website, your product images are polished and your overall site design is professional, but you still aren’t sure what’s turning people away?
Capturing conversions online takes a truly special combination of factors.
There are many opportunities to make mistakes that cost conversions on your website. If you’re having trouble getting buyers to stick, consider whether you’re making any of the following mistakes to cause visitors to leave your website without converting.
Why People Leave Your Website
1. Your site design is outdated.
People judge books by their cover – and website home pages are no exception. In a study about website trust, the study found that 94% of wary respondents attributed their uneasiness to the website’s design.
Design matters. So if your site still looks like something out of 1996 Geocities, it’s time for a professional facelift.
2. Your content is difficult to read.
On a related note, consider that design isn’t just about colors, images and graphics. The fonts you use, as well as the colors of your text and background, can determine how easily people can read and digest the content on your website. If it can’t be easily read, it’s simply not going to convert very well.
There are no hard-and-fast rules about which fonts to use and which to avoid — except you should never, ever use Comic Sans. Instead, stick to high-contrast color combinations and clean, ornamentation-free serif or sans serif fonts for best results.
3. Your videos are on auto-play.
Today’s digital-savvy customers prefer to choose how and when they consume online content. Blasting at them without their consent is a quick way to drive potential customers from your website — without a purchase.
4. Your site navigation is unclear
Not only is unclear navigation bad for your on-site user experience, it’s bad for your SEO as well.
The golden rule of navigation is this: Think through your site’s setup as if you were your own customer. If you were totally new to your website, how would you expect to find the information organized? What steps would you take to find the information that’ll answer your questions?
Rearrange your navigation to take your user’s needs into account and you’ll stop losing potential sales due to bad content organization.
By addressing these issues on your website, you should be see major gains in your website’s performance. But these aren’t the only factors that can affect your ability to convert visitors into customers and reduce the number of people who leave your website.