Is your website driving customers away before you even have a chance to meet them? First impressions matter and your website is often the first point of contact with potential customers. With fierce online competition, even small issues can lead to customer dissatisfaction and repel potential customers. By recognizing the signs that your website may be driving customers away you can create a website that’s inviting rather than off-putting.
Signs that your website might be repelling customers:
Website Errors
One of the most common signs that your website is driving customers away is frequent errors. These can range from broken links, contact forms that don’t work, maps that don’t load, pages that don’t show properly, error messages, and more. Not only do these errors frustrate visitors, but they also reflect poorly on your business’s professionalism and reliability.
Poor Navigation
Too many options to click will make the page look sloppy and will confuse users. It’s important to determine what links need to be on the navigation menu and what can be displayed on the inside pages. If your website has confusing navigation, lacks clear call-to-action buttons, or users can’t find what they are looking for, they will move on to a competitor’s website.
Confusing User Experience
User experience (UX) plays a crucial role in keeping visitors on your site. Poor UX can show in various ways – confusing navigation menus, flashy or distracting animations, links leading to the wrong place, pages that don’t load properly, cluttered layout, or hard-to-read fonts are just a few examples.
Poor Readability and Color Contrast
If the text on a website is too small, illegible, or if there is insufficient color contrast between the text and background, it can make it difficult to read and can hurt the viewer’s eyes. Avoid website backgrounds in dark shades and instead choose background colors that make the content easy to read. Remember to use white space, it improves legibility and makes it easier for users to focus.
Not Accessible to Disabled Users
Disabled users account for nearly 15% of all Internet users. If your website is not accessible to users with disabilities they will go to a competitor whose website is accessible to them. Websites must be designed with appropriate contrast and color schemes, descriptive alt text for images, well-structured content, readable fonts, captions for videos/audio content, and should avoid using flashing or fast-moving content.
Non-Responsive Design
With the increasing use of mobile devices, having a responsive website design is a necessity. If your website is not mobile-friendly or fails to adapt to smartphones or tablets, users will quickly become frustrated and leave. A non-responsive website not only presents a poor user experience but also negatively impacts your search engine rankings.
Slow Loading Speed
Site speed matters. Users expect websites to load quickly and the average user won’t wait more than 3 seconds for a website to load before leaving. If users experience slow loading times, they are likely to abandon your site and seek out a faster alternative.
Lack of Trust Signals
Trust signals are elements on a website that instill confidence in visitors about the credibility of the business; security certificates, privacy policies, updated copyright year, certifications, terms & conditions, etc. If these trust signals are missing from your site or hidden away in hard-to-find places, visitors may question the legitimacy of your business and leave.
Is Your Website Driving Customers Away?
Depending upon what is causing your website to drive customers away it may be a quick fix, or It may call for a larger redesign. Either way, Hammersmith Support is here to help. Schedule a complimentary consultation and let’s talk about your website and discuss how we can help.