What Makes Someone Leave Your Website?
As a web designer/developer I pay very much attention to websites’ usabilility. Because websites are made for the visitors, even if many tend to forget that.
I recently discovered this cool infographic that points out what frustrates most visitors when navigating a website.
Please take into consideration that bounce rate is also a ranking factor in Google’s algorithm. And breaking the usability rules will only get you high bounce rates, not to mention your website will not serve any purpose.
Here is the list of NO-NOs:
- Bad navigation
- Too many ads on your page
- Bad content structure
- Obtrusive use of audio and video
- The registration requirement
- Boring content, boring design
- Poor legibility
- Lack of frequency
Infographic Source: KissMetrics
My personal frustrations
To the list I may add the following I saw on many internet marketing (and not only) websites that really really annoy me and make me go away:
- The requirement to like/share/+1/tweet in order to see the content.
I know internet marketing is a tough world and must do all possible to get visible, but asking me to like something before even seeing it is dumb! I’m not that disparate. There are more than 350 million websites on the internet to chose from, and I won’t like you just because you want me too – who’s the disparate now?
- Incredible time to load the page
Everybody knows time is money. And with today’s broadband connections it is acceptable for a page to take more then 5 seconds to load. You think 5 seconds is a short time? Try to count to 5 in a normal manner looking at this image:
Isn’t that boring? Now try to imagine counting to 5 while looking at nothing – you see what I mean?
Pages that take longer then 5 seconds show lack of respect for visitor’s time.
Now it’s your turn. What makes you leave a website? Let me know in the comments!
About the Author
Fantastic article Sorina. For a newbie like me the No-No’s are a good pointer, thanks. As for what makes me leave a website, too much clutter. I am patient so don’t really mind the loading speed if the site is well organized and easy to navigate. I know the Warrior Forum is a good source for us but that is an example, it look me like four days to figure out how navigate that site. See you soon…
Mo
Munir Nathoo recently posted..Story of the 1000 paper cranes…
Mo, forums are a different type of websites. It took me a lot too to understand how they work, to learn their terminology, to find my way around them.
But once you managed to understand one, all are the same. There is a learning curve in the beginning, but you will benefit from it from here on.
There is an article on Wikipedia with basic information about forums/ terminology and features, maybe it can help you: Internet Forum
Hi Sorina, Thanks for link. Yes I see what you mean by forums being a different type of website and its true, once you know how to navigate one then they are pretty much the same. I have never been exposed to forums before joining this challenge so am still green with stuff like this, but hey, you learn something new everyday! Thanks to people like you who are so full of knowledge and willing to share
Munir Nathoo recently posted..Story of the 1000 paper cranes…
Oh, the pop-up that covers the screen before I’ve read 3 words and invites me to subscribe…. that gets my travelling shoes on…bye bye.
Janie recently posted..The Key to Success
I was wondering if someone else was bothered by that
Initial I wanted to put that on my list of “frustrations” but I saw so many websites using it, and so many products sold in order to create them – “triple your website conversion”, “200% more subscribers to your list”… and since I’m rather new to Internet Marketing I thought it is a necessary evil.
But I confess… those popup really get on my nerves! I never given my email address to anyone using that technique.
Hey Sorina,
Don’t really know where to start but there are a few reasons I would leave a site almost immediately.
Several pop ups. I know how effective they can be and I can even tolerate closing ONE per site.
I don’t like it when I’m being bombarded with sliders from below, then another one showing your face and telling me you have something great for me and then another slide from the side to tell me you’re not available to “chat” and everything gets worse when I try to leave and you stop me with another exit pop up.
That’s enough for me to never ever come back to a site like that.
Another pet peeve of mine is really poor design on a site that has been online for years.
I know not everybody has graphic design skills but if you have been online for a while and you have never even had the thought that your site may not be at least average looking and you still did nothing to fix it?
Then I’m not interested in your content, period.
I’m always on the look out for people raising the bar, pushing themselves to become better, showing that they are dominating their prior fears, I really don’t resonate with average people.
They say content is king and this is a very subjective thought but if I land on a site that has really boring content or if the content reflects that it wasn’t written with passion, then I don’t spend one more second in that site.
I have many more but these should do for now.
Sergio
PS. Really love KissMetrics. I’m not sure if it was them but I’ve heard on an interview they’ve paid up to $1,500 USD for one infographic and sometimes nothing (designs made from their readers) that’s interesting to know isn’t it?
Sergio Felix recently posted..Project: Las Vegas
I know what you mean by old websites that still keep crappy design on. I’m paid to look at 10 websites like this in average per day, and I thing I find a new “the ugliest in the world” every month.
The problem with those websites is strange, some of them have been made back in the ’90 by their owners, and they actually don’t think their design is outdated, they still brag around with it.
Hi Sorina, a vey interesting post. For me the things that make me leave are not being able to access post easily and if I can’t learn anything from it them I’m gone.
I don’t mind the odd pop up but hate it when you can’t navigate away people should put time and effort into a post. If you think about it and research it and then put something great together people are going to want to stay and actively seek out your free give aways.
I am not saying my posts are the best but really do try and give people something that they can take away or at least make them think.
Best wishes
Clive
Clive recently posted..Maximizing Content To Increase Your Traffic Generation
Totally agree Clive.
I was reading the other day a post on a copywriting blog. The post was about how often you should publish content, but the most interesting fact pointed out there was that you should post only when you think you can came up with something that will help the others.
Hi Sorina,
I was thinking if I could put pop-ups but as a visitor it looks, spammy or forcing a person to sign up. This is helpful for newbies like me. Thanks for this!
Regards,
Bibs
Bibs, I think popups are the big dilemma of honest marketers… everybody knows they convert well, and everybody knows they annoy the visitors. What to choose?… What compromise to make?… I still don’t know and hunting for different ways to fix/control this. When I will find a solution I will post it.
Well I was recently wondering about the design of my site, on the grounds of this article there isn’t any gaping flaws at least.
Jarkko Helenius recently posted..What Jay Levinson Taught Me About Learning
Good for you Jarkko!
Very nice post. Yes I agree with all of them. For me the BIG no no is pop ups. I hate them. In fact I visited a site yesterday and whatever page I went to a pop up appeared. I couldn’t get out of it! Then I got an email saying would I like to sign up to their list! I didn’t even fill out a form!
Naughty. It went into my spam straight away.
The best thing to do is pretend you are a visitor to your own site and see what you would think about it.
Your site ticks all the boxes Sorina!
Kay
Kay Franklin recently posted..Adding Breadcrumb Navigation to Your Site
Thank you Kay!
That thing that happened to you is really strange, receiving an email even if you never filled out any form. I’m not sure how they managed to do that, but if you never interacted with that website before, giving them an email address, chances are they used some spyware.
Sorina,
Thanks for your “friendship” on Facebook.
Great post about what makes people leave your website.
My blog is still on a standard theme because I haven’t been able to find one I really like yet.
I will certainly be back here often to take a look at your reviews of plugins, etc.
Great info.
Good luck in the challenge!
I promised myself and everyone that might see my blog that I will make videos today and do this week’s tasks!
Cheers!
Sally
Sally Cevasco recently posted..Final week of Dean Holland’s Quick Start Challenge!
My pleasure Sally.
If you are looking for a theme for your site maybe you should check my post about wordpress themes. It also includes some links to website that provide quality free WordPress themes.
Hi Sorina
I have an idea for you. Could you perhaps create a graph or something similar of peoples responses here? It would be great to see the biggest “bug” factor of why people leave a website?
My bet? Pop ups!
All the best
Kay
Kay Franklin recently posted..Week 4 – Summing Up the Quick Start Challenge
Key, I will try to do that but my website doesn’t have many visitors (YET). And we should be aware of the fact that our comments are a little biased, most of us are in the IM business, visiting mostly IM websites.
In this case I think you are correct, pop-ups are at #1! And then I wonder how come so many are using them? Do they really convert that good?
Hi Sorina!
Great post!
For me Pop Ups (Kay won the bet! hehehe) is number one thing that will annoy me.
Especially the ones where the make the “close” button pretty hard to find.
If the pop up only comes out ONE time, that’s fine. But there are some blogs where that thing keeps popping up every time you want to read other posts.
Content also play a major role whether I come back or not. I prefer blog where I know it’s human who is writing the blog post by looking at the style of writing.
For me the content doesn’t necessarily informative, but if it’s entertaining or inspiring I’d definitely come back to that blog.
Chetz
I understand your frustration with popups Chetz, but as a web developer I also know that providing a popup solution that allows the website owner to setup its behavior so that it is not annoying to the user is very difficult.
It must have the ability to set up on what page to be displayed, with a proper delay, after visitor x visit to the website, record in some how the visitor’s first interaction with the popup (if he decided to click and not subscribe at that time to not show it anymore or show it only after some time, in case the visitor changes it’s mind).
I’ve been actively searching for this kind of plugin, but until now I couldn’t find anything to feet my needs.
Re the content I also agree, it must speak to me in somehow, I must relate to it, not to feel like I’m always chased to buy something from that website.
Hi Sorina,
For me. Any uninvited pop-ups. If I click on something when I’m there and get a pop-up then maybe that’s my fault. If I visit without clicking anything and get Tango’d by even one pop-up – I’m gone – as fast as I can click that left mouse button.
I don’t even touch the pop-up. I’ll sooner shut my browser down than touch that pop-up. I find it disrespectful. The message it conveys is “I don’t know you. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care what you want. I have no interest in you other than to get you to sign up to my list”. It’s like walking into a shop and immediately getting slapped by a dragon breath shop assistant because I don’t have my wallet out yet.
Good topic choice. I like Kays suggestion. Perhaps a survey? See what the trend is?
Regards
Nick
Nick recently posted..I Survived!
Hahaha, the “dragon breath shop assistant” comparison is so funny but yet so true!
And as Kay predicted, the worst enemy so far seams to be the popup!
Hi Sorina,
I’ve just come to your site from the QSC blogroll as I am working my way through it.
I love this post I have learned so much that I will implement on my own site in the future.
I agree about popups especially if they come up before you have had time to read any posts, I had one on my site but hopefully I’ve got rid of it now.
All the best for the future I’m sure that you will go far.
RoseG
Hi Rose and thanks for the visit.
I’m glad you found this post useful and also the comments sections is full with gems, and I have to thank you all for commenting here and expressing your opinions.
Hii Sorina,
Great post, as soon as I went through it, I started to make changes in my site…
These are the most common things but still lot of people misses it.
Thanks ..
Now i will take all of these seriously..
Thanks Rohit!
I’m glad this helped you tweak your website!
We must take our visitors seriously, because they are the reason our websites are online.
Hi Sorina. I’ve just been re-visiting this post and comments to see what others said and see that a few have agreed with my objection to opt-in popups. I’d actually love to see some figures on this if anyone has compiled them from research. I see lots of claims for conversion rates, but mostly on sales pages for the popup plugins. I’ve never met (even virtually) anyone who says they like them as a user rather than a marketer. Who is filling in all these popup forms, I wonder? It’s a mystery.
Janie Thomson recently posted..Freedom From The Tyranny of the Membership Site Theme
Janie, I didn’t find such study either… but I’m not sure if they can give me the information I need. I don’t want to see a study where they say “using this popup my subscription rate increased by 300%”, what I want to see is a study about how effective is this in the long term.
If in the next 2 weeks, by adding a popup on my website I will get 5000 subscribers, for me that will just mean a bigger list in Aweber. If at the first newsletter or offer I send out only 5% open it, and many of those open it to unsubscribe because they didn’t want to be on my list from the start, they just didn’t know how to close that popup then the subscription numbers don’t impress me much…
Hey Sorina!
It’s really nice to see articles like these since you realise that there is such an infinite amount of things you can ‘tweak’ on your website. I am 15 years old and am still learning SEO but this really gives me an ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking strategy of what I can do to eventually make my website better. Thanks alot!
– Szymon
Szymon recently posted..Tech deck
Szymon, it’s great to see my article helped you! You’re probably the youngest of my visitors, I hope you will find helpful information on my website in the future also!
Here is my SEO advice to you: read carefully Google Webmaster Guidelines and follow GoogleWebmasterHelp channel on YouTube. They are really helpful and not just simple tricks that may not work after a few months/years.
Hi Sorina,
Excellent article. I hate popups myself. What also hate is the locked portions of the posts. Generally I just leave.
I love your graphics. They are so well done. Could you share with us how you created them. I would love to hear.
All the best,
Dita
Hello Sorina,
It seems there is a common thread about pop-ups and such. Personally, I usually click the X until I have seen more content.
When I enter a site don’t assume I want to sign up right away! I think the best approach is having your normal opt-in in your sidebar and then one that is at the end of your page or post.
This gives the reader the opportunity to see what you have to offer in terms of good content. Then after I read the post, I like what you have to say, then I’ll sign up with the convenient opt-in box right at the bottom of the post.
Also that “Facebook Like Me To Read More” crap has got to go. If I see that I just leave! I mean, what’s so special about that content? You want to entice me to sign up, write great content. Then after I’m done reading a few of your posts, I’ll have a opt-in form right after I read your great content and I’ll sign-up!
I really think that is the way to go. But then, that’s just my opinion
I’ll be posting something about a plugin that I have but seems like it got forgotten. The website is gone, there is no support, but this plugin is way cool! Curiously the videos are still up, but there is no one around.
I’ll get one of the videos up so you can see just what it does. I know everyone will like it. I bought it as a WSO last year and still haven’t tried it yet. I just want to be sure it’s working properly.
Sorry for the long post but I know everyone here will agree that as a marketer, you want people to sign up to your list, not scare them away. Use a soft touch and I’ll sign up. Get aggressive and I’ll leave.
Signing off,
Rob (Thanks for listening) Hegner
Rob Hegner recently posted..Getting Started With Internet Marketing
Wow Sorina! That is the only opt in pop out sign up form that I like! Way cool!! I’m looking at the site right now.
Nice!
Rob (again)
Rob Hegner recently posted..Getting Started With Internet Marketing