Semalt Explains What The 15 Second Rule Is And Gives 3 Main Reasons Why Users Leave A Website

How long do you think the average web user stays on a web page? 30 seconds? One minute? Five minutes? Think again. More than half of people on the Internet spend 15 seconds or less on a web page before they click away. If you're not able to capture their attention quickly and keep it for an extended length of time, you've lost before you've even begun.

We all know that we've gotten shorter attention spans since the dawn of the Internet. But why do people only spend 15 seconds on the average web page? What's making them leave so quickly, and what can you do to make sure your audience doesn't click away after reading a sentence or two?

Semalt is your one-stop-shop for all things SEO. We offer comprehensive tools such as our Dedicated SEO Dashboard that help analyze your website, from the content to the backend, and determine how you can improve your SEO. Our tools can also help you pinpoint the best SEO keywords and see how your competition is doing. 

In addition to our Dedicated SEO Dashboard, we also offer services including AutoSEO and FullSEO, SSL, analytics, and more.

Let's imagine that you click on a website and find an article that looks interesting. You click on the image, but you're led into a page with a 404 error. You click the back button to find something else to read, and the same thing happens. The next thing you know, you're being bombarded with popups and ads, then you finally get fed up and leave.

User experience is one of the biggest aspects impacting how long someone stays on your website, so if your site is not usable, you're bound to lose your audience almost immediately. First, it's important to tackle those technical issues like broken links or poor mobile performance. These small fixes can make a world of difference when your users are trying to access your site.

You'll also want to consider the design. Make sure it's apparent where specific content is located and ensure that your page is visually appealing. Your website should achieve clarity and simplicity while still being relevant and helpful for your target audience.

We've all had an experience where we click on the website and are immediately given way too much information. Maybe you have to click off of four ads before you can get to the content you came for. Maybe the homepage is simply cluttered and offers too many options for us, so it's not immediately clear where we should go to find what we want.

It might seem like you want to provide as much information as possible on your home page; after all, wouldn't that be the easiest way to make sure that your audience has everything they need to properly view your site or make a purchase from you? Actually, the opposite happens. The phrase "less is more" is incredibly valuable in these situations.

Now, that's not to say that your website can't have a lot of information available. It's not a bad thing to have a large website. You just don't want to overwhelm your audience as soon as they click on your site. The key, then, is offering a simple home page as well as a convenient way to navigate to your other content. Keeping your website organized and easy to get around can work wonders for the user experience. 

Simply having a clean and functional website, unfortunately, isn't enough to make your audience stay. After all, your users clicked on your website for a reason. There's a certain answer they're looking for, and they're wanting to take action. If you're not inspiring them to do that, then why would they keep looking at your site? 

Making a good first impression with your audience is key. You want to make it immediately apparent why your company is the best or even the only, place to get the information or the product that they're looking for. Of course, the best strategy to do this is going to depend on a wide range of factors that make up your target audience.

In this step, doing your research is incredibly important. Figure out the types of people who would most want to visit your website. Do they live in a certain place? Make a certain amount of money? Work in a certain field? Have a specific type of family? Even beyond this basic demographic information, you'll want to find out the interests, lifestyle, and values of your audience.

Being able to connect with your readers is one of the key things that will keep them from clicking away. It all comes down to understanding your audience on a personal level instead of viewing them as simply numbers or conversions. In fact, doing this type of research can not only help to improve your website but can form the basis of your marketing and SEO strategy as a whole.

Ensuring your audience stays on your webpage as long as possible is just one way to improve your SEO standing. There are so many other aspects of your website that you can target, from keyword density to mobile load time to page uniqueness and more. But how are you supposed to check on all of these issues and improve them? What if there are aspects of your website that you don't even know how to fix?

That's where Semalt comes in. We offer the tools and expertise to help you analyze your website inside and out, improving your SEO in ways you may have never thought possible. You're welcome to use our tools and take our feedback into your own hands, or you can turn to our team of experts to translate your data into actionable steps. Want to learn more about the possibilities of our Dedicated SEO Dashboard? Contact us today to learn more!