Can’t seem to retain visitors once they land on your website? Getting them to visit your website is only half the battle; the other half is keeping them there. There are dozens of possible reasons why your homepage may be luring customers away, some of the most common being listed below.

No Clear Call to Action
When a visitor enters your website, what do you hope he or she will do? Whether it’s signing up for an email newsletter, purchasing a product or service, or just browsing through some of your site’s content, you need to direct them using a prominent call-to-action (CTA). A CTA may consist of a large, red-colored button saying “CLICK HERE TO ORDER,” or may be an oversized text link. Just remember to place the CTA in an area where it’s easy to see and not overshadowed by other elements on your website.

Messy Navigation

It might be easier to link to all of your website’s pages from the sidebar, but this isn’t a viable long-term solution to navigation. Seeing dozens of links tossed into the sidebar with no sense of categorization can send visitors heading in the other direction. Ideally, you should use a hierarchy structure for your website’s navigation in which top-level category links are displayed on the homepage, and clicking those links will reveal relevant pages associated with the respective category.

Lack of Mobile Compatibility

We’ve talked about this before, but it’s worth mentioning again that more people now access the Internet on their mobile devices than desktops and laptops. Webmasters who fail to adapt to the ever-growing demographic of smartphone users will get left in the dust by their competitors. If a visitor attempts to access your website on their smartphone, and your website isn’t mobile-friendly, they may encounter broken text, non-functional media playback, and other usability problems.

Pop-Up Windows

I think most people will agree that pop-up windows (and pop-under windows for that matter) are downright annoying. When you click on a link, you expect a single window/tab to appear, not several. There’s nothing wrong with including some promotional messages on your homepage, but you should avoid pop-ups, pop-unders, autoplay video, and other intrusive forms of marketing. Keep your homepage clean and simple and you’ll notice more visitors engaging on your site.

Smart Link Solutions can help create a beautiful, responsive website using up-to-date technology. If you are in need of a website or website re-design, call Smart Link Solutions today at (248) 684-0500 or click the call-to-action below.