5 Reasons Why Users Leave Your Drupal Website
If the bounce rate on your Drupal website is high, further detailed investigation is required. Below, Drupfan specialists outline the most common reasons why people leave a website.
Slow web page loading
What is a good web page loading speed? A load time of 2 seconds or less is recommended. Research shows that users leave a site that takes more than 4 seconds to load. Ideally, a web page should load in the blink of an eye — 0.4 seconds or less. Every millisecond of delay reduces customer satisfaction rates, potentially leading them to abandon the site forever. As a result, conversion rates also decrease.
In a broader sense, Drupal website performance not only means web page loading speed, but also media loading speed, overall site capacity for handling requests, and user traffic. To improve overall website performance, all of the above should be addressed.
The best tool for auditing website performance both for mobile and desktop is PageSped Insights. Along with performance analysis and estimation, PageSpeed Insights does a checkup of the website’s accessibility, SEO, and best practices, as well as provides valuable advice on fixing related issues.
Learn more about improving Drupal website performance in our recent blog post.
Poor SEO optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is crucial for a successful online business strategy. All metadata, as well as keywords and descriptions, should be relevant and display only the key information. If metadata and keywords are set poorly and don’t correspond to the page’s content, it is not surprising that visitors leave a website after not finding what they expect to see.
In addition, all redirects should work correctly and lead to the expected web page. Take some time monthly to review content, ensure it is still relevant and up to date, check links and redirects for 404 errors, etc. This way you’ll ensure that your SEO is always on top.
Discover the secrets of Drupal technical SEO.
Lack of mobile responsiveness
More and more users choose mobiles for accessing the Internet. Drupal CMS is famous for its mobile-first approach to web development and is the best choice for building a responsive platform. In Drupal, the mobile-first approach applies to the focus on how content is structured, layouts are displayed, and features function on mobile.
However, as with any other thing in web development, mobile responsiveness should be finetuned and optimized. Besides, it is crucial to create a separate mobile-oriented web design, as website elements can’t look the same on both desktop and mobile.
Website doesn’t have HTTPS certificate
HTTPS certificate is a digital certificate that confirms and authenticates the site and creates a safe and trusted environment for all users. To check if a website uses HTTPS protocol, simply look at its URL: it will contain https:// at the beginning.
HTTPS certificate ensures that all the user’s data is encrypted and sent over a secure network. For example, when a user enters his login and password on the https website, his credentials get encrypted to secure them from hackers or malicious bots.
Seeing an http:// in the URL without a letter ‘s’ (https) means that the website is not using a HTTPS protocol. Thus, many visitors can abandon such a website with security measures in mind.
Website navigation is unclear
A website navigation is an organized set of links that lead to other pages on the platform. Web navigation should be intuitive and lead to the key conversion form in the least possible number of steps. If navigation is unclear, poorly visible, or includes multiple steps till the destination point, users are more likely to exit the website.
Tips to Make Users Stay on Your Website Longer
Here, we highlight the essential tips to prevent users from leaving your Drupal website.
- Post only high-quality and relevant content.
- Avoid clickbait headlines.
- Create appealing Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons with clear requests.
- Make your website accessible and compliant with WCAG requirements.
- Ensure that all the metadata and keywords are relevant to the web page content.
- Eliminate any broken links or redirects.
- Improve web performance. Make sure your site passes Google’s Core Web Vitals audition in PageSpeed Insights.
- Make your Drupal website responsive.
- Create a user-friendly and intuitive web design.
- Use multimedia.
- Add interactive elements.
- Create personalized user experiences.
- Add feedback opportunities.
By following these simple tips, you can significantly reduce the bounce rate on your Drupal website, as well as engage users more and increase customer satisfaction level.
Final Thoughts
Although there might be multiple reasons why people leave your Drupal website, in this blog post we outlined the most common issues: slow web page loading, irrelevant SEO data, lack of mobile responsiveness, absence of HTTPS certificate, and confusing navigation.
If you experience a high bounce rate on your Drupal website and would like to explore the reasons in more detail, don’t hesitate to contact the Drupfan team. Our experts can conduct a thorough audit to determine what may be causing visitors to leave your site. After identifying problem areas, our Drupal professionals will easily improve the website/ retention rates and overall user satisfaction. With Drupfan’s support, you can turn your Drupal site into a more engaging and user-friendly environment for your target audience.
