Bounce rate is the number or rather percentage of people who leave your site almost instantly after taking a quick look.

People do not click or perform any other action on your site when they bounce!

Make sure to lower the bounce rate and prevent visitors from bouncing.

Many people bounce due to your own mistakes as a UX designer or blogger.

What are typical website issues that lead to more bounces?

Common website UX issues that make me run away

You don’t even know why people leave your site instantly?

I want to help you with this article!

Thus I collected a list of these usability sins that make me bounce and never come back again to avoid whenever possible.

See below!

1. Overlay ads hiding your content

I’m off. In contrast if there is a full page ad on white background – an interstitial – I will stay sometimes.

Yet in both cases hiding the content below useless or annoying overlays makes me bounce.

Imagine a movie scene hidden behind an ad.

The second one would be akin to a commercial break. It’s still interrupting but does not require switching it off.

Yet I will also sometimes skip it.

2. No content on top

When I can’t find anything of value of the page aka above the fold/without scrolling.

When I can see only Google Ads and banners I’m gone.

Huge forms that as me to sign up for a newsletter on the first visit are also a nono. Offer value first!

3. Page loading too long

I’m in a hurry. Most people on the Web are. We are not reading books online.

In many cases I won’t wait until you loaded all the ads and third party widgets.

Especially when I’m a first time visitor and I don’t know what to expect.

4. Portal like cognitive overload

Unless I’m looking for a portal or portal like site I’m gone the moment I see a super cluttered interface. I almost never do actively look for one.

Visual clutter and lack of white space gives me headaches!

I get overwhelmed quickly due to cognitive issues.

That’s also the main reason I rarely use the cluttered Google “search” results anymore.

5. A stupid publication name

Does your site use a generic name like “funny images” or “interesting design” or “cool art”? Splog!

Such random sites are most likely displaying stolen content with no attribution to the actual source!

True, my blog also uses a generic name – seo2.blog – yet it’s short and delivers instantly!

6. Black background

My eyes are strained! It’s hard to discern anything anyway on screen.

Black type is still best though, just like with books.

In case you haven’t read advice on readability and contrast for the last 10 years it’s your fault!

You scared me away.

7. Badly displayed images

Images pr photos having clearly visible JPG artifacts or which are wrongly resized put me off!

This looks way too clumsy that I leave!

Tiny thumbnails enlarged to blurry quality or huge images loading forever are ostracizing me too!

8. “Make $$$$$ quick”

Get rich quick with this and that. People seriously buy into that?

Make money online and get rich quick schemes are too prevalent to get taken seriously.

When I sense something seems off or too good to be true I leave in an instant.

9. Smilies and emojis!

I like using them from time to time on social media.

Lots of huge emojis at the top of the page are ridiculous though.

Buzzfeed-like sites are for teenage kids.

WTF? I’m too old for that LOL. Just kidding haha.

Leave me alone. Don’t show me emojis unless you are very close to me.

10. Huge headlines in Verdana?

Do you remember when IKEA started using Verdana for body text and headings?

Gosh that looks ugly! Verdana is no headline font!

Futura they used for 50 years is much more readable.

Only IKEA got away with that design sin.

Yet even they replaced it by now with a cleaner font. They use Noto by now.

These are redundant User Experience mistakes

All these sins do not enhance your site – they break it – while at the same time you can very well live without them.

You can skip them easily without rebuilding your site from scratch.

Please take basic usability and user experience into account and remove all of these obstacles.

Why? You’ll feel better afterwards.

Your site visitors will stay longer too (think “time on site”) and maybe even buy something!