What Turns People Off Websites?

There are plenty of great websites out there, but let’s be honest, there’s also a lot of not-so-great sites, too. Sometimes, people off websites because they were built with malicious intentions; say, they’re trying to steal the visitor’s personal data. At other times, people dislike the site even though it was built with honest and pure intentions. And that’s disappointing because, in many cases, the person who built the site put in a lot of time and effort. 

The good news is that it’s nearly always possible to turn things around. That’s because the things that people don’t like about websites are fairly well known. So what are they? Let’s take a look.

Dark Patterns

Website owners have their own interests at heart. They want to try and get as many people on board with their site/company as possible. However, there’s a right and wrong way to go about this. You should always try to do it in a respectable way, rather than trying to trick people into doing what you want. There’s a growing trend of using dark patterns on websites. This is a type of dishonest web design—say, making it look like someone has to sign up to your website to see content, when in fact, it’s not true. This will sometimes get you what you want, but you’ll lose more visitors than you gain. 

While they’re not necessarily dark patterns, things like autoplay videos and innocent but frequent pop-up ads can be enough to make people hit the ‘X’ button. 

Minimal Content

People might enjoy the type of content you have on your site. But if there’s not much of it, then there won’t be all that much of a reason to stick around. When you’re still developing your website, it’s a good idea to put together a respectable amount of content so that your site doesn’t look too empty when you launch. This might require that you have some patience, but it’ll be worth it in the long run!

Reliability Issues

People don’t have a lot of patience in any area of their lives, least of all their digital lives. When they visit a website, they expect it to work. If it’s running too slow or, worse, is offline, then they’ll begin to question whether it’s worthwhile spending time trying to visit your website. And unless you offer something of supreme value, they’ll probably decide that it isn’t. As such, it’s worthwhile checking that your site is reliable. A cheap VPS server can help to reduce/eliminate website downtime. You can also speed up your website by compressing files and deferring JavaScript loads. 

Low-Quality Content

Finally, be sure to treat your visitor’s time with respect. While you can’t always ensure that every piece of content is 10/10, you should at least have high standards. People won’t become repeat visitors to your website if they’re not getting all that much in terms of value. If you wouldn’t read your article elsewhere, then don’t publish it on your site.