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Why Aren’t People Staying On My Website?

You’ve tried your best to create your own website; you have labored for hours over the words to capture your visitor’s interest, you have added some pretty images. You are also getting good traffic to your website, but you wonder why most of these leads don’t convert and they leave after only a few seconds of visiting a page on your site. You will be rubbing your head asking why aren’t visitors staying on my website?

According to the Nielsen Norman Group, (leaders in user experience research) most users stick around less than 59 seconds. This means that if you are unable to capture your user’s attention in less than a minute, you’ve lost them. Frightening when you think of the effort already put into your small business website!

I’ve pulled together a few reasons why your visitors don’t stay on your website for long and what you might do to rectify the situation. Keep in mind with marketing, there is no absolute definative answer, it is a task of test and measure. Try addressing a few of these issues below then monitor the changes to behaviour in your analytics dashboard. (Just on this: if you don’t have analytics please do that first, you have invested in a website, respect that expenditure by monitoring what happens on it, who comes to it, where they come from)

You don’t need to do all of the suggestions below at once. And it goes without saying try the cheapest and quickest ideas first, test it out, observe results then try another idea.

  1. Your website design is not engaging or talking ‘to’ your customer

The truth is we all judge the book by its cover, you are naive to think otherwise and losing opportunities. Design matters and clarity of message is important. Appealing to your customer is vital, if you can look at your site through their eyes is a good start.

If your site still looks like a design of 1992, or it’s not responding on a table or phone, then you actually do need to invest the dollars in a professional makeover design. If your site is responsive but not sure if it’s the design that is outdated or how to fix it, take advantage of a website and brand review. There are quite a few automated ones online and we also offer the service WEBSITE AUDIT.
Benefit of a review is you get the perspective of a visitor, then you can try to fix the issues yourself before starting a complete re-design.

  1. Your website content is difficult to read

Your design is not only about your choice of colors, graphics or images, but the colors of your text and background determine how easy your visitors can read and digest the content on your website. The simple truth is your website won’t convert well if it can’t be easily read. There are no particular fonts to use and which to avoid, however when in doubt use one font in 2 -3 sizes or thickness on light backgrounds. The next big tip is to break up all sections of copy with a hierarchy of really important summary headings, a secondary sub-heading then the body of the copy. This breaks the information into bit sized pieces for the visitor.

  1. Your customer can’t find what they want quick enough on your website

This could be because you are trying to get them to act to too many calls-to-action or they can’t find anything clear to act on. You can fix this easily.

  1.  the navigation might be using silly names to describe pages so it’s not clear where to go – change to simple descriptions
  2.  you have no clear and highly visible buttons or offerings that ask the visitor to do anything. This could be CALL US, BOOK A FREE QUOTE, DOWNLOAD OUR AWESOME GUIDE, VIEW ALL SERVICES.
  3.  keep language simple. Using convoluted language to appear intelligent firstly comes off annoying and secondly the visitor still can’t find what you do, how you help them and what they should do next
  4.  no clear services within the top section of the page.

The core learning here is to keep the language simple, spell out what you do, how you do it and who you help in as few words as possible. Finally include one call to action you wish the visitor to take.

E.g Heading: We offer Osteopathy to reduce muscle pain in sports people, elderly, pregnancy and children.
Followed by a button: MAKE A BOOKING

  1. The videos on your website auto-play

There is nothing that will make your visitor leave your business website within seconds of arriving than a video that auto-plays. Today’s digital-savvy customers now prefer to be the boss; they like to choose when they wish to consume online content. A quick way to get users off your site is by blasting unwanted content at them without their consent. A follow up to this is to keep your videos to less than 2 minutes, get to the point and keep the focus on who you help, how and why with as little about you as possible. Keep the old marketing adage ‘what’s in it for me’ at the forefront.

Don’t get me wrong video is a huge strategy to keep people on your site. Video will also help develop a connection with your visitor quicker than words, keep it short, show your personality and focus on solving their problems. Video testimonials are also extremely powerful.

 

  1. Add your customer testimonials for credibility

63% of customers will more likely to purchase from a site with reviews. (see full report here )
Use testimonials for social proof, overcoming barriers to purchase, shows real experience of working with you. Testimonials have bonus benefits as search engine spiders like fresh new content and a review is a great and easy way to fee the spiders. If you would like a testimonial template to get incredible praise for your work from customers try ours here, it’s FREE!

 

So, there we have 5 tips to help you keep your visitors on your site and converting more of them.  The good news is that you are getting traffic so high five for that, but now is the time to see how you can improve conversions and hopefully we ‘ve given you a couple of fixes to answer your question why aren’t people staying on my website that you can enact yourself.

Author - Johannah Barton

Johannah Barton

Johannah is founder and owner of Confetti Design, a leading Melbourne Shopify Agency. Her extensive background in fashion, interior design, sales and marketing contributes to the Agencies great ability and reputation. She creates content that helps small businesses navigate the online space helping them to consider their website as a sales tool.

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