Your website is designed to allow users to flow freely from visitor to lead and lead to customer (if not, let us help). But for some reason, you still can’t seem to get your conversion rate up to where it needs to be.  Maybe you’re being annoying. To find out, check your bounce rate. Is it low? Great! Is it high? Not so great. A high bounce rate means that whatever page people are bouncing away from might not provide value, be poorly designed, etc. And, in a world where our attention spans are slower than that of our fishy friends, this is definitely annoying. People come to your website looking for an answer to a problem that they have. If they can’t find that answer quickly, they’re going to look for it somewhere else. Hint: your competitors. Here are three things that you definitely should avoid like the plague to keep your website from becoming annoying:

Force users into the funnel

Scroll down. Form. Scroll down. CTA. Scroll down. Form. 

Saturating your website with CTAs, forms and messaging that is sales-focused will give off the desperate vibe. And consumers these days can feel it almost immediately. 

However, this is a balancing act. You want to give your users the ability to convert when and where they are ready, but it shouldn’t be obvious that that’s the action you want them to take. Using tools like LeadIn can help you limit the on-page CTAs, forms, etc., that you’ll need to convert visitors while giving you a better idea of how they are interacting with your content.

Have too many on-page distractions

In-line advertisements, multiple CTAs, a sidebar full of related content and probably more advertisements. All of this distracts the user from the action you want them to take on the page. 

For example, you’re reading an article and a video advertisement automatically starts playing. Not only does this decrease the load time of the page (especially on mobile) but you’re likely going to give the video a few seconds of your attention as well. 

Eliminating these distractions will allow the user to quickly find what they are looking for, which will build trust and position you as an authority on the subject matter.

Deliver a bad mobile experience

You’ve clicked on an article on Facebook. The article loads, you’re enjoying the content for about five seconds and BAM! You’re automatically redirected to an advertisement.

Or, you’re interested in learning more about something. You go to fill out the contact form and you type out your message only to find that the ‘submit’ button is so small that no matter how much you zoom in you can’t seem to click on it. 

The bad-mobile-experience examples are seemingly endless, and if a bad experience is a potential customer's first impression of your brand, well, you’ve got some problems. 

88% of people who search for a local business on a mobile device contact or visit that business within 24 hours. And if they are unable to successfully navigate your mobile site, guess what? Off to a competitor they go. 

Make sure your users aren’t choosing your competitors over you. Check your bounce rate, optimize, repeat. Then, you’ll be well on your way to conversion-rate bliss.