When a person visits your website, they expect to find content relevant to the product or service you offer. If they come across a page with content about blogging, home buying information, or male enhancement pills, they are likely to abandon the site quickly.
The layout and visual hierarchy should draw the user’s eye to what is most important. This will help establish credibility, build trust, and drive customers to your business.
1. Unclear brand messaging
If you don’t have a clear brand message, you can’t expect visitors to become your customers. If they are unsure what your business is about or whether it is the right fit for them, they will leave your website as fast as they came.
Unclear or ambiguous branding will also cause your website to rank lower in search engines, which can hurt your business’s organic traffic and conversion rates. You should have a clear mission statement, value proposition, and call to action that tells your visitors what to do next on your site.
Small businesses can often be seen as unknown quantities, so having powerful credibility elements on your website is essential. These could include testimonials; BBB and other well-known accreditations; and statistics that demonstrate the size of your company and your success. Without them, buyers will have only your marketing propaganda to go on, and they’ll be unlikely to trust you with their email addresses, phone numbers, or payment information.
2. Poor readability
Reading a page that’s difficult to read is frustrating for visitors. They won’t spend much time on it and they will likely leave your website to find a more readable one. Google also favors websites with comprehensible content in its search rankings. You can track website visitors here to know what you need to improve or change on your website.
Readability includes font size, typeface and color, text-to-background contrast, line length, and paragraph structure. Your web content writer should be able to write at the appropriate level for your audience and avoid using too much technical jargon.
Active sentence structures are easier to understand than passive sentences. If your content writer uses a lot of passive voice, run it through an online grammar checker to help them make changes. Commas are like speed bumps – too many of them will slow down your readers and cause them to lose interest. Avoid using them simply to break up long words or to add style. Instead, use them to help your reader absorb the information more quickly.
3. Lack of mobile responsiveness
Mobile users are impatient, and they want your content to load quickly. If they don’t see a response in just a few seconds, they’ll close your website and go to another one that offers them a better browsing experience.
Most websites decrease their web page size to fit the screen of a mobile device, but this approach can lead to poor user experience. This is because the text often becomes too small, forcing visitors to squint in order to read it.
Instead, a responsive web design is a better choice, as it enables you to optimize your site for any device and browser combination. It also allows you to use a simpler, more intuitive navigation system that is much more user-friendly than the traditional method of navigating a website through multiple tabs or windows. Ultimately, this makes it easier for your visitors to navigate your website, and it will increase their satisfaction and trust in your brand.
4. Confusing or inconsistent navigation
Navigation is an important part of a website, as it helps visitors understand where they are, what they can do, and how to get where they want to go. Using clear, intuitive menus, and consistent labelling can make all the difference.
Users expect your website to have a simple navigation structure and easy access to important pages. They also expect the same navigation experience on all devices — laptop/PC, tablet, and smartphone.
Having different navigation systems on each page can be confusing to visitors, especially if the changes don’t align with their mental model of how your site works. It’s fine to experiment with the design of your navigation, but ensure that it doesn’t deviate too far from what people expect. Use visual cues, like icons or section headers, to convey that a navigation option is a link, or isn’t a link. This will help prevent visitors from clicking on non-links, and getting frustrated when they see no results.
5. Poor visual design
When a website’s visual design sends visitors the wrong message, they lose interest and search for a better option. For example, using unreadable fonts on a dark background can strain users’ eyes and prevent them from understanding the content.
Also, the use of excessive images and graphics can look cluttered, distracting users from the content they’re trying to read. Additionally, pixelated or low-resolution images diminish the site’s credibility and professionalism.
In contrast, a professional web designer will strategically incorporate high-quality, relevant visuals that enhance the user experience. They’ll also ensure that their designs are consistent and easy to understand. This includes using a few complementary fonts throughout the site to maintain a cohesive visual design, as well as limiting the number of different background colors and text sizes to avoid visual confusion.
6. Unnecessary forms
While it’s a necessary tool to combat spambots, Captcha is also incredibly annoying for visitors. Not only does it add to the amount of time they have to spend on your site, but it can also slow down their web browsing experience as well.
Unnecessary forms can make your website look cluttered and unprofessional. They can also be difficult to navigate, especially on mobile devices. This can frustrate your visitors and cause them to leave your site.
Keep in mind that your visitors are savvy and use the internet to solve problems. They aren’t interested in putting up with unnecessary barriers. Make sure that your conversion process is simple and optimized for mobile. If not, your visitors will turn to other resources for information and solutions.
7. No search box
If your website has a lot of content, it’s worth investing in unified search and generative answering to make sure users can easily find what they need. For instance, ecommerce websites like Amazon provide a lot of choices and use advanced filters to help customers navigate their way through the products they’re interested in purchasing.
On the other hand, a poorly designed search experience can be frustrating for visitors as they encounter empty results pages that leave them at a virtual dead end. This is a major turnoff that drives many people away from a site, especially when it is a company they’re considering doing business with.
8. Ignoring mobile devices
When browsing the internet, there’s a very good chance that you’re doing so through your mobile device. It is more important than ever to keep mobile users in mind during the web design process and to ensure that your website delivers a seamless experience across all devices.
Ignoring mobile devices is a surefire way to turn away visitors and negatively impact your business’s bottom line. As more people rely on their mobile devices for everything from researching local businesses to making purchases, it’s vital that your website be accessible from all devices.
Mobile users are typically on the go and don’t have time to wait for a website to load. In fact, more than half of all visits are abandoned within three seconds if a page takes too long to load. Slow load times also waste Google’s “crawl budget”, which can hurt your search engine rankings. This is why it’s essential that your website loads quickly on all devices.
9. Poor UX
Poor user experience on a website can cost businesses customers. A single bad design element can leave visitors frustrated and irritated, leading them to seek out better experiences from competitors.
Whether they’re looking to buy products, sign up for a newsletter, or contact the business, users want to be able to easily navigate the site. A cluttered layout, confusing navigation, or a lack of accessibility are all examples of poor UX.
Ensure your website has a search box, clearly labelled navigation buttons, and simplified content structure. Use of whitespace is also helpful to make pages scannable. It breaks up large blocks of text, improves readability, and helps to create visual hierarchy. Also, consider limiting forms to the minimum necessary and adding help text where needed. This will minimize the frustration that results from overly long and complicated forms. Using a well-designed and intuitive navigation process will keep visitors satisfied and encourage them to return to your site again.
