The top 10 reasons visitors are leaving your site within the first few seconds

 

Has Statcounter’s Session Replay revealed a high number of short visits and bounces on your website? Let’s take a look at some of the reasons your visitors may not be sticking around for more than a few seconds and what you can do about it.

1️⃣ The visitor was a bot

In many cases, extra short visits can be from web crawlers or bots. You can set Statcounter to ignore visits so they don’t skew your stats and use up your log or your monthly session replay quota.

To do this, log in to Statcounter and click on your project. In the Project Config menu at the bottom of the blue left sidebar, select Ignore Visits. Scroll down to the last section Ignore Visits by Crawlers & Bots and make sure the checkbox is checked and select Save Settings.

2️⃣ You’re sending paid traffic to your homepage

We’ve talked before about why it’s vital to create dedicated landing pages for your digital ad campaigns.

If you’re sending your paid traffic to your homepage or any other page that isn’t targeted towards your visitors and the message in your ad, you’re encouraging bounces and leaving money on the table.

 

Paid traffic converts well only if your post-click landing page is focused on a single purpose and conversion goal, has a clear visual and content match between ad and landing page and has an obvious single call to action.

3️⃣ The page took too long to load

Mobile traffic has long surpassed desktop traffic. With the average mobile visitor expecting websites to load within 3 seconds, it’s crucial to put some thought into how you can optimize your site for faster loading times. Not only will a faster loading site lower your bounce rate and increase conversions, but page speed is also a confirmed Google search ranking factor.

 

Optimizing images, minifying code, and removing render-blocking JavaScript are among some of the methods we recommend in this guide: Boost your rankings and conversions by increasing your page speed.

4️⃣ There was no clear call to action.

Attention is an extremely scarce resource and visitors who find your landing pages through organic or paid search are making split-second decisions. If they can’t find the purpose of your page and what to do next, they are not likely to stick around.

Creating a single call-to-action button will help guide your visitors along their journey to becoming a customer. To create a high-converting call-to-action button:

• Make the button colour contrast with the rest of the page.
• Make the button large.
• Start the text with a verb. E.g. ‘Subscribe Now’, ‘Learn More’, ‘Try it for Free’.
• Make it clear what happens next.

5️⃣ The content was overwhelming

Session Replay shows us exactly how our visitors digest content. Rather than reading every word and scrolling in a linear fashion from top to bottom as we might expect, online reading patterns are rather frantic. Visitor’s tend to scan content and scroll up and down, mostly taking notice of headings, bold text, bulleted lists, and links.

Creating well-formatted content using brief paragraphs, punctuated with headings, lists and images helps our visitors to engage more with our content without getting overwhelmed.

6️⃣ The content was irrelevant

Advancements in the Google search algorithm in recent years enable the search engine to recognise the intent behind a search, based not just on the keywords but also on how they are phrased in the search box.

 

For example, if the words “How to…” precede the keywords, Google knows that the searcher is looking for an answer in the form of a guide or instructional video. Recognising Search Intent allows the algorithm to serve up different types of results relevant to the search.

Optimizing for keywords and search intent is the best way to make sure the content on your landing pages is relevant for your organic visitors.

7️⃣ Popup windows and chatbots were a nuisance

Tools designed to catch your visitors’ attention such as popups and automated chatbots can help with engagement when used sparingly and at the right time. They can also be an unwelcome nuisance and a reason to abandon your site. Windows that pop up immediately when a page loads are rarely a good idea.

The best way to know if a tool like this is working is to introduce it gradually on a single page and watch your visitors’ reactions using Session Replay. You’ll be able to see if they ignore or dismiss it or if it helps solve their problem.

8️⃣ The site wasn’t mobile responsive

Hopefully, it goes without saying at this stage but if your site doesn’t adapt to mobile devices, not only will mobile visitors abandon it without a second thought, Google gives preference in its search results to mobile-friendly websites.

 

9️⃣ The navigation was confusing or hard to find

Adapting sites to be mobile-friendly has meant displaying fewer navigation links on the page and sometimes hiding navigation items behind menus. This is good in one sense in that it forces us to really think about what’s important on the page and remove any clutter. However, when we place important navigational links behind menus, they often become hard to find.

Make sure the key pages on your site are easy to find and as mentioned above, create a clear call-to-action on the page to help guide visitors where they need to go next.

🔟 Your visitor found what they were looking for

Short visits and bounces are not always bad. If your visitor was looking for something specific such as your phone number, email address or directions to your business, their visit will have served its purpose and a short visit to your contact page could be considered a success.

 

Statcounter’s Session Replay takes the guesswork out of why your visitors are leaving your site early by showing you exactly what they did during their visit.

Statcounter is currently in the process of rolling out Session Replay to all Statcounter members.

If it’s not available to you now it will be available very soon. Look for the play button icon on each session in your Visitor Activity and Visitor Paths pages.

This article was first published at statcounter.com
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This Guide is published courtesy of and with permission by Statcounter.

At PP Design, we develop awesome professional websites that always include visitors stats provided by Statcounter.

 

Fact-check: “People Don’t Spend Much Time Reading Web Pages”