The 5 mistakes that drive a customer away from your page in 3 seconds

A potential customer lands on your page. They did not ask for anything, they came across it from Google, from a story, from a link a friend sent them. During the very first seconds, they do not read: they look. And they decide whether to stay.

It is brutal, but it is also good news. What makes a visitor leave so quickly is almost never the quality of what you sell. It is display details, and details can be fixed.

Here are the five we see most often.

1. People cannot understand what you do

This is by far the most common mistake. At the top of the page, there is a logo, a beautiful image, a poetic slogan, and… nothing that says what the business is.

“Excellence every day”, “Your trusted partner”, “Since 1998”. Fine, but what do you do, and where?

Your visitor must be able to answer three questions without scrolling the page: what is it, where is it, and is it for me. One sentence is enough. “Artisan bakery in the centre of Luang Prabang, sourdough breads and pastries every morning.” It is not glamorous, it is effective, and it is exactly what someone who is hungry expects.

2. A dark, blurry or outdated photo

On a page, the photo speaks before the text. An underexposed image, taken against the light, with a cardboard box lying around in the corner, sends a message you did not choose: “this is not well kept”.

The trap is that we get used to our own photos. You know your establishment, your brain fills in what the image does not show. A stranger only sees what is on the screen.

Take your three most visible photos and look at them as if you were discovering the place. Does the light make you want to go in? Is the shopfront the one from today, or the one from four years ago? Often, it is not even necessary to redo everything: a crop and a lighting adjustment are enough to transform a photo you already had.

3. The page is slow or displays badly on a phone

Almost all of your visitors discover you on a phone screen, sometimes with an average connection, sometimes standing in the street.

If the page takes time to appear, if the text is tiny, if you have to zoom and move sideways to read, nobody persists. There is no frustration, no bad opinion: there is just a step back, and a competitor right below in the results.

The test takes one minute: take out your phone, turn off the wifi, open your page. What you feel during those few seconds, your customers feel every day.

4. People do not know how to reach you

It seems obvious, and yet. A number hidden at the bottom of the page, an address written in an image that nobody can copy, opening hours nowhere, no map.

A convinced visitor who cannot find how to contact you within three seconds does not look any further. Your phone number must be clickable, your opening hours visible, your address linked to a map. And if you mostly reply by messaging, say so clearly.

5. Too much of everything

Five different fonts, six colours, animations, flashing banners, three buttons that each ask for something different. By trying to highlight everything, you highlight nothing.

A page that converts is calm. One strong idea at the top, beautiful images, an obvious path to contact. The rest can move further down, or disappear.

The real test

Show your page to someone who does not know your business. Let them look for five seconds, then hide the screen and ask them what you do and how to reach you. The answer will tell you everything, and much faster than a long analysis.

If you want an outside view

You know your trade better than anyone. Making it obvious in a few seconds on a screen is ours. At Agence PowerCom, we take businesses’ existing photos to give them back light and framing, and we design clear, fast pages that are easy to read on a phone.

If you have doubts about your current page, send us the link. We will tell you frankly what catches the eye, what drives people away, and what deserves to be fixed first.