by Edward Barfield, on 5/20/21 3:11 PM
Let’s say your business comes up on the first page of a Google search, and a user clicks on your website. Perhaps they even landed on your website from a paid social campaign on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Once they land on your site, you may only have a few seconds to impress them! Considering this crucial time constraint, is there a way to find out if your site is converting visitors into leads?
Yes! You can evaluate the bounce rate using Google Analytics. This statistic displays how long visitors are staying on your website. For most Business Solutions Providers (copier, printer, IT, etc.), a high bounce rate off of your website isn’t a good sign. Instead, you want users to view more than one page of your site, engage with your content, and convert by filling out a form, calling, or sending an email.
So how do you make this happen? Here are the four most common reasons why users quickly leave a website:
1. Slow Website Loading Speed
According to Neil Patel, 40 percent of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load. To see how fast your website is, you can conduct a free speed test on Pingdom. One of the most common reasons for your website to load slowly is bulky code. Coders may include white space to increase page readability, but this space can be removed while maintaining an easy-to-read design. Although fixing this problem requires a little coding skill, there are a variety of changes you can implement to your site with no coding required! Here is a shortlist of things you can do to increase your website speed:
- Host your videos through a third party, like YouTube or Vimeo, instead of on your website
- Check the reviews and forums of your theme to see if there are any common issues.
- Update the theme if necessary
- Check if plugins are functioning correctly
- Compress images with sites like TinyPNG
2. Unattractive Web Design
This has always been a challenge for developers. You need to find a balance between “beautiful design,” user experience, and content. If you create great content but don’t implement an attractive design, users won’t stay on your site long enough for the content to matter. Instead, you need to provide great content that is also well presented. Being in the office technology space means your site needs to look modern and be cutting edge. Follow these steps to update your web design:
- Update your images and ensure your font styles are legible and modern
- Incorporate full-screen designs to make your site feel less cramped
- Mix up your page layouts to make each page distinct
3. Unresponsive to Mobile Devices
According to Google, more than 50 percent of all searches are performed on mobile devices. If your site is not responsive to smartphones and tablets, the user may struggle to navigate through your website and move on to the next one for a better user experience. Choose a theme that is responsive and renders well across all mobile devices. You can read more about this on our blog post, Need to Generate Leads? Ensure your Website is Responsive.
4. Visitors Don’t Know What To Do
The average website conversion rate is 2.35 percent, with the top 10 percent of companies seeing a conversion rate anywhere between 6 percent to 10 percent, according to WordStream. The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to your website that complete a desired goal. Goals can be anything from filling out a form to making a phone call from your site. Many websites have a path for each visitor to follow in order to land on specific pages. Visitors who aren’t sure how to navigate through your site will leave pretty quickly, decreasing your overall conversion rate. Creating a clear path for visitors to navigate through your site may be simpler than you think:
- Make sure each of your “core pages” (ex: MPS, Managed IT Services, document management) include a Call to Action (CTA).
- Offer them various ways to reach you—fill out a form, schedule a free assessment, etc.
It’s not easy to pinpoint exactly why users leave your website, but it is easy to begin optimizing it.
Roger Jung - Evolved Office
www.evolvedoffice.com
