Why Aren’t People Staying On My Website?

You’ve tried your best to design your own website; you have labored for hours over the words and website text to capture your visitor’s interest, you’ve also added relevant images. It seems like you are getting good traffic to your website, at least that’s what Google Analytics is telling you. But, there’s a problem, you wonder why most of these leads and website visitors don’t convert. That they leave after only a few seconds of visiting a page on your website. Rubbing your head, you want to know “why aren’t people staying on my website?“

According to the Nielsen Norman Group, (leaders in user experience research) most users stay on a website for less than a minute. What that means is that if you are unable to capture your website visitors attention in less than that minute, you’ve lost them! This is a frightening statistics particularly when you think of the effort already put into your small business website!

The team at Confetti Design are designers of hundreds of websites in Melbourne and have put together the top reasons why your visitors don’t stay on your website for long. We will also give you ways websites design solutions to  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 the website design ideas 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 website design recommendations at once. And it goes without saying try the cheapest and quickest ideas first, test it out, observe results then try another idea.

Your Website Design is not engaging 

So your website design is not engaging or talking to your customer (website visitor). The truth is we all judge the book by its cover, you are naive to think otherwise and losing opportunities. Website 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 90’s, or it’s not responding on a phone or tablet, then you need to invest in a professional website design makeover. If the design of your website 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 a review as part of our initial quote to support you with a better understanding of the conversion.

The main 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.

Your Website Content is difficult to Read

Your websites design is not only about your choice of colors, graphics and images, but the colors of your text and the background determine how easy your visitors can read and understand the content on your website.

The simple truth is your website will not convert 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 different sizes or thickness on light backgrounds. The next big web design 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. 

Customers can’t find what they are looking for on your Website

This will be because you are trying to get them to act on too many calls-to-action or they can’t find anything clear to act on. This can be fixed with simple website designs as follows:

1. The navigation might be using incorrect or not specific details that best describes the pages. This will make it not clear where the website visitor is navigating to Fix – change to simple descriptions on your website menu
2.  You have no clear and highly visible buttons or offerings that ask the visitor to take action. Fix – Add a call to action, this can include 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. Fix – basic English unless it is a technical website.
4.  There are no clear services within the top section of the website homepage. Fix – You need to detail the services or products to make it easier to find 

The key website design learning 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 at least one call to action (CTA) you wish the website visitor to take.

An example is as follows:-

Heading: We offer Osteopathy in Oakleigh to reduce muscle pain in sports people, elderly, pregnancy and children.
Call-to-action: Followed by a button: MAKE A BOOKING which clicks to a form, call or email.

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.

Add Customer Testimonials to your Website

With 63% of customers more likely to purchase or engage from a website with reviews. (see full report here ), you need testimonials!

Why do you use testimonials including Google Reviews? Testimonials provide 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. 

So, there we have 5 tips to help you keep your visitors on your website 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 have given you fixes to answer your question why aren’t people staying on my website that you can enact yourself.

Experts in Website Design