You created a website for your business so people can find you, but also to market your services, make sales, develop relationships and build your business.
Did you know that poor user experience can do the opposite? It can cause high page abandonment, low visitor-to-lead conversion and poor organic search positions.
Hubspot Marketing has created a list of 17 things people hate about your website. This list can help when developing a site, but also is a guideline for existing websites to determine how they can be improved.
It takes forever to load
According to a KISSmetrics report, 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less, and 40% abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load.
It isn’t optimized for mobile
Scrolling from side to side or having to pinch and zoom to read content just frustrates users.
Google announced it would strengthen the ranking of mobile friendly sites so if a site isn’t mobile friendly, it will lose out in organic search rankings.
It offers poor navigation
It’s important for users to easily know where to go and what to do on your site.
It uses excessive pop-ups
How annoying is it to have your reading interrupted by constant pop-up boxes? Many sites are now using slide-in call to action boxes that are less obtrusive.
It contains multimedia content that autoplays
The user is enjoying reading your site when suddenly music starts playing or someone starts talking and they can’t find the button to stop it. It’s likely they will simply close your page.
It’s littered with generic or cheesy stock photography
It's much better to show real pictures of customers, employees, your company, product, and location.
It doesn’t clearly explain what your company does
Steven Krugg sums it up best in his best-selling book, Don't Make Me Think: If visitors can't identify what it is you do within seconds, they won't stick around long.
It contains keyword stuffed copy
Keyword-stuffed copy makes for a bad reader experience. So instead of cramming a keyword in every chance you get, read this blog post to learn the five parts of your website where you should optimize for keywords.
It’s missing social sharing buttons on content
Buttons make it easy for your readers to share your content on social networks because they don't have to manually copy and paste your URL and compose a tweet.
It employs title and headlines that are incongruous with the content
Also known as click-bait. It's important to capture people’s attention in titles, but make sure it isn't misleading and the content can actually live up to what you promised to deliver.
