Many times even when you have excellent content on your websites & blogs, there are constraints that discourage visitors from spending time on your site or even coming back repeatedly.

You may be losing valuable readers not because of your content but because of technical & cosmetic issues that you may not realize even exists.

It may be worth to take a look at the top 5 reasons why people could go away from your web page or not return to your website anymore. I have added a few suggestions & recommendations to each of these top 5 website problems that could help you retain your readers & make your visitors keep coming back.

1. A complicated content layout - unless you are running a ezine, organize your content in a way that is both meaningful & readable by your visitors. A neat clean layout is essential to offer your reader a soothing environment.

Suggestion : A simple 2 or 3 column layout with a wide format is quite common. Have an index of articles if possible. Organize your content either in terms of media type or subject. For example, you may have one column dedicated to Videos & Podcasts, one to your text-only posts & one for advertisements. Use a light color for the text back grounds preferably white, off-white or mild shade of gray with dark color font , preferably back.

2. A slow website - one that takes hours to show up on your browser. It may not be the browser problem after all, it could be that your web pages are programmed in a way that makes it take a long time to show up. Having too many ads could cause your web page to load slowly on a reader’s browser (and it does not matter whether it is a text ad or an image ad - its the ad server that takes a lot of time to push ads to your pages).

Suggestion : Use simple themes that uses less complicated Javascripts or JQueries . Themes should have few images , and when you have to use them, ensure that you have images optimized in size for web viewing. On the other hand, your domain host should be available almost always to serve your web pages. Unwarranted server breakdowns , poor services from domain hosting services will slow down the loading of your website, or in the worst case, will make it unavailbable.

3. Too many ads - ads could be your primary monetization tool & you may not be able to afford cutting down on your ads. But if ads are either distracting, offensive or are placed in ways which make it difficult to read your content, your readers will simply abandon you. Without visitors, no amount of ad could generate you any money!

Suggestion : You would be the best judge of how many ads to show. Usually the reputed ad agencies provides ads very fast, while some tend to be slow. Multiple pop-ups could be extremely irritating to the user, often crashing the browsers. Ad agencies recommend not more than 2 pop-ups / pop-under ads even for very popular pages. Use clean, family safe ads with zero adult content.

4. Too big content published without correct paragraphing & styling - improper or no usage of paragraph styles & word spacings, line spacings could make the content too cramped. If the content looks over whelming to the reader, in all probability they would wander off after a glance.

Note that I am not commenting on the content itself. I am assuming that your content is valuable enough for the readers’ time.

Suggestion : Keep the content to around 500 - 700 words. That holds the readers attention tightly. Any less and you may not be able to express your thoughts, too much could make it boring & taxing on the reader’s time. Use font size of 12 - 14 & for text, use simple font styles like Helvetica & Arial. Highlight key words, phrases or recommendations.

5. Spelling mistakes & incorrect references - my grammar teacher in school used to tell the class how a wrong spelling "hurts his eyes". It is so true. Readers are sensitive to the spellings & style of writing. At the same time, they are interested in the authenticity of your content. Correct usage of quotations & acknowledgment of copyrights are key to building trust with your readers.

Suggestion : Run spell-check . Most of the word-editors have an inbuilt spell-check that you should use. And for references, I use pingbacks . That way, I could also let the original author know that I have used his / her content. When using charts, graphs or numerical data, mention (& provide a link to, if possible) the source of the information. It gives the readers an opportunity to look up the source for more, in-depth study.

These are 5 top most reasons that I have advised new bloggers & web entrepreneurs to look out for when deploying websites or blogs. The key again is to keep it very simple & straight forward.

I would love to know if you have faced any other types of issues & problems which should find a place in the top 5 reasons why people stop coming to your websites & blogs.

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