7 reasons your website is driving customers away (and what to do about it!)

You’ve got the dream website, or so you thought. You’ve spent ages trying to get a website with a professional design, compelling copy, and nice features. Except, the traffic you are getting on your site isn’t going anywhere but off your page. You are failing to attract leads and convert them into customers and your bounce rate is on the rise. Not an ideal situation… Unfortunately, there can be many issues that cause these problems, and they are usually commonplace. If you want to help turn that situation around, consider these 7 reasons that are driving your customers away, and what you can do about it!

1.     Not designed for mobile

Optimise for mobile devices

Not optimising your site for mobile is one of the biggest mistakes you can make with a website in today’s digital world. Research by Cybercrew has found that smartphones account for around 47% of the UK’s traffic online. What is more, around 81% of those with a smartphone search for goods and services online. With more people now using their mobile to search the web, you can get the picture of how important it is to optimise your website for mobile as well as desktop.

Not optimising your site is essentially turning a huge chunk of your potential customers away. People won’t stick around trying to navigate a desktop site on a small screen. They’ll just leave. Google has even recognised the importance of mobile responsiveness, which is now a key SEO ranking factor. If your site is mobile-optimised, Google will rank you higher than a website that is not.

The solution? Make sure you incorporate a mobile-friendly web design that is responsive to mobile devices. That includes making sure the design and copy can be adjusted to fit smaller screens, buttons are easier to click, and navigation isn’t a chore. You could also consider designing for mobile-first, an approach we have advocated at Dreamscape for a while now (and still do).

2.     Failing to capture the user’s attention

Capture users attention

You’ve achieved the successful job of getting a user onto your website. But that’s only the first step. You need to keep them there, and if your website isn’t capturing the user’s attention then say GOODBYE to your potential customers and HELLO high bounce rate!

People will form an opinion of your website in no time at all. It takes a user 0.05 seconds to form an opinion on whether they’ll stay or go. Therefore, your website needs to create an impression from the get-go. If you want to stand any chance of progressing a user towards taking action, you need to first capture their attention.

Fortunately, there are many methods you can use for capturing attention. First and foremost, use strong imagery and graphics to capture a user’s eye. From there, you can use a combination of videos, bold and striking typography, a balance between imagery and your written copy, and most importantly, creating relevant and meaningful content that aims to delight your potential customers.

3.     Poor layout and navigation

There is not much worse than trying to navigate a website and not being able to find what you are looking for. What is worse though, is not being able to navigate much at all. Overflooding your navigation only works to confuse users and will see them seek the information they desire elsewhere.

People will not hang around spending time ploughing through your poor site layout to find the information and solutions they are looking for. If you can’t give your users what they want as quickly possible, they’ll go elsewhere. A situation that only helps your competitors. Not providing an easy-to-use search function can also add fuel to the fire.

Creating a site structure is the first step you should take to improve navigation. Not only does creating a site structure benefit your SEO, but it also helps organise the many pages within your website. This will help make your navigation much easier. Then, when developing your navigation bar, you should adopt a minimal approach. Less is more. Once you’ve clarified your site structure, you can develop a page hierarchy. Using dropdowns on your navigation bar will help to declutter your site and make it much easier to navigate.

4.     Providing irrelevant or uncompelling content

Providing relevant and compelling content

If you are following the inbound marketing methodology, you should be creating compelling content that aims to engage and delight your customers. But, unfortunately, not every website follows suit. Providing content that is both irrelevant and uncompelling is another factor that may be driving your customers away. Your potential customers are searching online for a solution to a problem. If your content isn’t helping them to address that problem, you are making a mistake that will cost you.

Making sure the content is easy to read and understand goes a long way. The design and typography you use will have an impact on the readability, alongside how well your content is written. If people cannot easily read and digest the information, they’ll just give up. Not breaking up your content with headings and imagery is another mistake that can make your content more difficult to digest.

Solving content strategy issues is not something that can happen overnight. If you want to be providing relevant and compelling content, you need to know what people are looking for. Begin by undertaking keyword research. That way, you can identify the search phrases and terms people are looking for. You can build your content strategy around those keywords to help your content be as relevant and compelling as possible.

With regards to making it easier to read, that is all down to style. Make sure you use fonts that are clear (not those fancy fonts that are hard to read!). But under any circumstance, never use Comic Sans! Just don’t. Make sure you leave sufficient whitespace to break up your content, use heading tags, and make sure the colour is readable against the background. That way, you’ll be sure that the content you are offering can help drive those conversations down the line. Developing your buyer personas also tells you what content appeals to your potential customers and how they best like to receive it.

5.     Who are you?

Tell your customers who you are and why

You’d be surprised by the number of websites that do not tell a user who they actually are. Whether it’s the company name, brand logo or stating what it is you actually do. Not providing sufficient information about who you are is another possible reason your website is driving customers away.

The same goes for not providing contact information. Even if a potential customer isn’t going to contact you, seeing your contact details adds an element of trust. Which is extremely important online!

The solution here is to make sure your website is well branded and that users can see who you are. Make sure you include your contact information as well, in both the footer of your website and on a dedicated contact page. Make sure you include contact details such as a contact number, email address, physical address, and location. Adding links to your social media profiles wouldn’t go amiss either, in a prominent place where people can see them.

Another point to consider when stating who you are is “why”. The saying “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it” is relevant here. And it’s true. Simon Sinek’s ‘Golden Circle’ is a good framework you can use to help inspire your potential customers. People are a lot more interested in finding out why you do something as opposed to what you do. Start with why first, and then lead to the how and what. That way, you stand a much better chance of attracting more customers.

6.     Not delivering on what you promised

Delivering on your promises

I’m sure we’ve all had the horrible experience of not getting what we were promised. Whether it is a service that didn’t live up to your expectations or a website that misleads you, not delivering on what you promised is another possible reason your website is driving customers away.

The same experience holds true in many situations online. Whether it be a content offer that you’ve not lived up to or a landing page that give the wrong impression, are both reasons that can lead to this tricky situation. The result is disappointment. When there’s a gap between our expectations and reality, disappointment is inevitable.

Disappointment will lead to:

In short, make sure you deliver on what you promise. If that means under-promising, then so be it. It’s better to under-promise and over-deliver to avoid disappointment. This way, you will stand a much better chance of delighting customers by exceeding their expectations.

7.     Auto-playing videos or audio

Turn off auto play for media

Our last (but certainly not least) reason your website may be driving customers away is when videos or audio automatically plays. While it is becoming less common nowadays, it is nonetheless still a problem that exists. While it may have been trendy back in the day to have videos or audio play automatically, it most certainly is not now. Users may well get annoyed and leave your site, not to mention getting the fright of their life if the volume’s on full blast!

Loud (or annoying!) music or videos that just can’t wait to start playing is a big mistake. It ruins interaction and dampens the user experience. When all it takes is one touch (or click) to play a video, do we need auto-play? I don’t think so. Apart from anything, it can be extremely embarrassing when in public places, and a video starts playing as your browse the web during a commute! The short answer is don’t have your media auto-play.

If you want to make sure you don’t drive your customers away from your website, make sure you implement the solutions we’ve outlined above. With some of these reasons being so easy to implement, it would be foolish to miss out on valuable potential customers. If building trust and a solid reputation is also important to your brand, then these fixes shouldn’t go amiss!