13 Reasons Why People Leave Your Website In 13 Seconds

7 min readNov 24, 2017

Are you breaking your head trying to figure out why people leave your website without engaging?

You’ve tried everything to grab user’s attention, but it doesn’t seem to be working. You’re not getting results for your efforts.

Visitors are gone with the wind and you don’t know what to do.

Well here’s a simple solution.

When you walk into any physical store, you are bombarded with sounds, smells, and a variety of things to touch. This atmosphere is created to make you stay longer and spend more.

Likewise, you have to make users stay on your website for a longer time.

When creating a website, it’s easy to get carried away and make mistakes which could cost you conversion.

Here is a list of 13 most annoying things that will make visitors go bye bye!

Outdated designs

If you look at the clothes worn in 1990’s, they’ll look absolutely ridiculous now. Because fashion trends come and go. Web design trends are also no different. Good designs should be your top priority because that will captivate your audience.

So if you haven’t redesigned your website for quite a while, it’s time you do it.

2. Poor readability

Writing content for web users is challenging. When reading a book or a magazine article, we read word for word. However, on the web, we scan information or jump towards other points hoping to view relevant facts.

With the attention span dropping, you have to give your best to capture the audience with the little time left. People must easily digest the content on your website, so use proper font color, text size, and background on your website.

3. Too many ads

If your website is ad-based, then removing them entirely is not an option. But just because you need to have ads it doesn’t mean it has to be everywhere.

And banner ads are a least trusted form of advertising. So it is best if you limit

4. Auto-play videos

Have you ever left a website because it had auto-play videos or music? I certainly have. You have to let people decide, not the other way round. If they really want to watch video or listen to audio they will.

Auto-play is super annoying. Turn it off if you’re site plays videos automatically.

5. Faulty navigation structure

If a user arrives on your website looking for specific information and gets caught in an endless maze, they’ll exit immediately.

Unclear navigation is bad for user experience and SEO as well. When arranging your website’s navigation, always take your user’s need into account.

6. Slow load time

According to a Kissmetrics report, 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less.

Users expect to navigate pages quickly and if your website doesn’t deliver it, your bounce rates will skyrocket and conversions will drop. So make sure you regularly maintain your website so that users don’t have to suffer slow websites.

Related reading- How To Load Your Website In 2 Seconds?

7. Annoying Popups

Excessive pop-ups interrupt reading experience, especially if the call-to-action makes you feel guilty.

The best alternative to pop-ups is slide-in CTA’s which are small banners that slide or come towards the bottom of the page. They are less obtrusive, provide users with additional information and allow them to continue with their reading piece.

8. Lack of responsiveness

Responsiveness wave for websites is getting too big to ignore.

Google research shows that 4 out of 5 consumers search for information using a mobile device. If your website isn’t responsive for mobile devices, you’ll lose visitors as well as fall in organic search ranking.

Transitioning to a responsive design will seem like a lot of work, but you’ll be happy that you did. If you’re website and content are not optimized yet, now is the right time!

9. Absence of proper information

There is no use of having an attractive title that doesn’t have any content to support. Once you get the attention of users it is important to have quality content to keep them engaged.

Simply adding content is also not enough. It has to be relevant, well written, and free of errors. Also, people usually scan content, so it is important that it is spaced out properly.

10. Cheesy stock photography

Using images is great for your website. But, in an effort to come off cheerful, website owners use such type of gem images.

Are users supposed to believe that people at your company are always this cheerful?? And always happy about work? So it is better to show your real pictures. If you don’t have any, at least make sure you don’t use such cheesy stock images.

11. Too many redirections

When a user clicks on a page, they expect to be taken to that page. If you’ve noticed a drop in your website ranking, improper redirects may be the reason. It may be as small as an incorrect character or big as choosing the wrong redirect.

Only by fixing these issues, you can improve traffic.

Related reading-Redirection — SEO Best Practices

12. Terrible color palette

When it comes to colors, most website owners think how well they look together and if they are appealing. But, colors on your website have lot more to do than that. Many books have been written about how colors can affect buying habits.

According to the way human senses work, color is the most influential, followed by shapes, symbols and then words.

13. Faulty offers

Making a compelling offer is one thing but, it has to be relevant to the audience and whether the ad benefits the user.

To make an effective offer, see how Apple advertised their iPod. It focused on the benefits of the product rather than its features.

Winding up

Clearly, ‘First impression is the best impression.’

And you’ve only got few seconds to make one. Luring people to your website is only half the battle, the bigger challenge is to get them to stick around.

If your website has any of the above elements, consider eliminating them to get better results.

If you discovered what was causing your visitors leave your website, do share it in the comments section describing how you faced and resolved it.

Also read — Small Business Website Cost

About The Author

Anjana Easwariah has been a ghostwriter for the past two years working with writing challenged clients. Currently, she is a copywriter at ColorWhistle managing content related projects. To write distinctly creative and unique content, she collaborates with the website design and digital marketing team. When she is not writing, you can find her playing shuttle or watching crime shows.

13 Reasons Why People Leave Your Website In 13 Seconds

Written by ColorWhistle