5 Things That Drive Website Visitors Away

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While you want your website to be unique and creative, you must be careful not to drive customers away with bad design elements.  Here are five things NOT to do to make people stick around:

1) Don’t have too much movement on your site

People who come to your website want to find the information they are looking for.  They don’t want to see flashy animations or text that moves when they are trying to read it.  Studies show that 99% of people who browse websites ignore moving banners and slideshows.  If they do click on something, it’s nearly always the very first slide.

2) Don’t be hard on the eyes

Keep your website design simple.  Don’t use busy backgrounds or low contrast colors.  Black text on a white background is the most simple and soothing scheme to stick with.  If your visitor can’t easily view your site, they will hit the back button and not return.

3) Don’t make it difficult to navigate

Your navigation menu should be simple and located in the same place on every page.  Usually, it will be on the top right.  Don’t present a bunch of links.  Have only the five most important pages showing on your menu.  Other pages should be nested under these main links when a visitor moves their mouse over them.  Don’t make your visitor work too hard to find what they want to see.

4) Don’t waste your visitor’s time

If you have huge images and tons of information crowding the page, it can take a long time for your website to load.  Slow load times frustrate your visitors and hurt your business.  Make sure your site loads quickly.

5) Don’t clutter your pages

Too much information on a page confuses your visitors.  Pare down your images and text and links, so that only the more important information shows on your pages, and put it at the top where visitors can see it easily.  Get rid of the clutter, and you will see your customer responses improve.

Good website design keeps your visitors on your site and helps convert them to customers.  First impressions are everything, and you only have a few seconds to catch their attention and encourage them to take action.  Make sure you are doing everything you can to optimize your site to help you get more leads and sales.

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