A new report by Loudhouse has discovered 57% of consumers will give up looking for information on a website if they can’t find what they need in the first 5 pages they look at.
The take-home lesson for web designers from this report is that clear navigation is key if you want to reach consumers, and no piece of information should take more than a handful of clicks to reach.
Other key findings from the report are:
- 67% of respondents will leave the website rather than contact the company.
- 47% turn to an another supplier’s website.
- 33% will contact the company by other means such as a telephone number.
- 12% turn to social networking sites for the information.
- 8% give up completely and never find out what they need.
Apart from the headline figure of people giving up in under 5 pages, the other interesting findings are the percentage that will reach for the phone (so make sure your website includes easy to find contact details) and the 1 in 10 people who turn to social media (so you should be monitoring the social media space and engaging with customers through it).
Websites should be designed to reflect people’s usage (if you don’t have dedicated user-tracking software then try Google Analytics) and should not be thought of as operating in isolation from other communication channels.
By thinking along these lines you’ll help more people find the information they need about your company.