Have you ever navigated to a website, not expecting much, and then been blown away by the beauty or functionality of the homepage? At Snap, we savor that feeling of wonder when looking at a gorgeous site (and then we get started building the next one!). But the web design process is complex. You can’t be expected to know everything that goes into developing a site when you have a business to run–unless that business is a website design company! We’ve outlined some of the biggest issues that cause visitors to leave websites, so you can get a better idea of what your company’s site should and should not look like.
Lengthy Load Time
You may have heard that the average human attention span is now apparently shorter than a goldfish’s. As worrying as that is to a normal person who wants to focus on a task, it’s even more troublesome for marketers and businesses that need to capture and retain visitors on websites. You really only have a few seconds of that visitor’s attention before he or she jumps ship and navigates to a different site, so you need to make it count. Don’t let curious visitors spend their time waiting for a data-heavy page to load–because you’ll probably lose them before your website even fully makes it onto their screen. Tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights can rate your website on how quickly it loads across multiple devices.
Confusing Layout
When was the last time you found yourself getting frustrated while struggling through a complex sign-up process online or looking for a key bit of information that seems to be hidden in the depths of a site? If you’re an average internet user, this was probably a recent occurrence! If your visitors can’t find what they need, they’ll go somewhere else–and you don’t want that. Keep your user’s experience in mind when evaluating your site. Is important information like your company’s address, FAQ, products, and e-mail contact easily accessible? Can a visitor get to what he or she might be looking for with as little confusion as possible?
Optimization Issues
Your company’s targeted demographic plays an important role in determining how visitors use your site. If your business primarily caters to younger people who frequently use their phones, make sure that your website is optimized for mobile. This means that the site will load correctly on a phone screen, allowing those mobile users to have a smooth experience. A site that doesn’t run well on phones and other smart devices like tablets won’t do well with an increasingly mobile-friendly public! You might also want to consider whether or not your company could benefit from developing a mobile app.
Intrusive Ads
No one loves annoying advertisements, but they permeate our world and seem essentially unavoidable online, even with an ad blocker in place. The key to good online advertising is to make your ads as unobtrusive and inoffensive as possible. Nothing will make a visitor hastily close out of your website like a massive ad that fills your screen and demands interaction. So consider passing up those flashing pop-up windows in favor of subtler banner ads or small sidebars that won’t interrupt the flow of content on your page.
Autoplay
Social media sites like to present autoplay as a feature, but the function doesn’t work nearly as well on business websites. Not only can sudden sounds startle visitors, they may choose to exit your site in order to stop watching your video–especially if the video player is hidden in an obscure corner and they can’t identify the source of the sound! If you absolutely must have autoplay on your site, be sure to adjust the settings so that videos are muted at first, and ensure that the pause button is visible on the media player. This will at the very least avoid startling your visitor and offer him or her the choice to switch the sound on and hear what your video has to say.
Poorly Written Content
People have different levels of tolerance for bad grammar. (Any writers you know probably have a pretty low tolerance…) But everyone has a breaking point, whether it’s a missed comma, multiple misspellings, or run-on sentences that makes the content completely unreadable. If you’re typing up your own blog posts and website copy, make certain to proofread any pages or articles before you post them. You may want to consider hiring a digital marketing agency to help you craft compelling, well written content for your site.
Upgrade Your Website with Snap
The majority of these website mistakes aren’t secrets guarded by a jealous website marketing company. They’re fairly self-explanatory, but it can still be difficult to spot them within your own website. You don’t have to be a programming genius to come up with a good website for your company; that’s why we’re here! The experts at Snap are looking forward to working with you to design and develop a beautiful website for your business.