Why People Leave Your Blog Without Reading Your Content

The dream of every blogger is to have people read your content from start to finish and even visit some other pages.

Increase in sessions>increase in page views> increase in income.

Yas!

However, there are some mistakes some bloggers make that make people exit their blogs without consuming their content.

This is a big issue.

Because what’s the point of writing content, no matter how rich, and having readers exit your blog angrily without enjoying what your content has to offer?

Just because there are millions of blogs on the web doesn’t make blogging less cumbersome.

Therefore, it’s only fair that you get a reward for your labour.

If you’re a blogger and you notice people aren’t reading your content, make sure you read this article to the end.

Even though I’ll be writing from a personal point of view, I believe I’ll be speaking for an average blog reader because these are TEN reasons I leave a blog without reading the content that led me there.

10 Reasons People Leave Your Blog

1. Privacy Policy/Cookie Policy Popups that Refuse to Go Off

As a website owner, it’s important that you have a privacy policy/cookie policy plugin installed on your website in order to get readers’ consent.

However, some policy popups are so annoying that they don’t go off even after giving your consent.

I usually click on the ‘accept’ button more than three times on so many blogs before the popup goes off.

On some blogs, it doesn’t go off, leaving me with no other choice than to leave the blog.

No one has all the time in the world.

Why should people spend more than thirty seconds to get to read the content that led them to your blog?

Check whatever cookie policy plugin you’re using and be sure it’s not too hard for readers to click it off.

2. Slow Loading Site

We are in a generation where things are gotten and done in an instant.

Instant coffee. Instant noodles. Instant payment.

Everything is instant. Everything is made fast and easy. Time is of the essence. Time is money.

We are one very impatient generation. We hate to wait.

Honestly, why would anyone wait too long for your blog to load when there are other blogs that can offer similar content?

People are likely to leave your site if your site loads very slowly. I’ve left many blogs because of this.

As a matter of fact, site speed influences your ranking on Google. Slow loading time is bad for your blog’s visibility on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

According to research, 1 in 4 visitors is likely to abandon your site if it takes more than 4 seconds to load.

How’s your site speed?

You can ask friends to visit your site and feed you back so that you get different feedbacks to know how your site is doing.

You could also check your site speed on your Google analytics.

If your site is loading slowly, you need to understand why that is so that you can tackle it.

What are the things slowing down your site?

There are various reasons for this.

I’m not a techie, so I’ll just share the non-tech reasons I know with you and what to do.

Why Your Site is Slow and How to Fix It

1. Large/unoptimized images

Images make a blog post more appealing to readers. However, large images can slow down your site.

To combat this, install the Smush plugin to help you optimise/reduce the size of the images you upload on your blog.

2. Too many plugins

We are grateful for plugins. It’s tempting to want to install a plugin for everything on your blog. But having too many plugins can significantly reduce your site speed.

Make sure you have plugins that are inevitably necessary on your blog. Delete the ones you can do without.

3. Theme

Some themes load faster than others. Try to find out the theme that works best for your site.

4. Broken links

If you have too many broken links caused by missing pages on your blog (404), it could affect your site speed.

To fix this, create a content to replace the link or simply redirect the link using the redirection plugin.

3. Unappealing Fonts

People may leave your site if they find it difficult to read your content because of your font – unusually small font, faint font or ugly font.

No one wants to strain their eyes to read what you’ve written.

4. Freebies popups

I understand it’s important to build an email list. However, getting a freebie popup when I haven’t even read your content is a huge turn off for me.

I don’t know you. I don’t know what you have to offer, yet. And you want me to start subscribing to your email list?

That’s not gonna happen.

Just let me read what I’m here for before I decide if I want your freebie.

As a blogger, find a way to show your freebie popups at the end of the post. That way, a reader would have decided if they want to be a part of your world.

5. Boring Writing

Even though you’re offering information, you don’t have to be boring at it.

If your posts make a reader wants to fall asleep, they might leave your site.

You don’t have to be a comedian or be unnecessarily hilarious, but try to be engaging.

How can you make your posts engaging?

Tips to Make Your Posts Engaging

1. Write in a conversational tone. Let your readers feel you’re talking to them personally.

2. Don’t be uptight/too serious (well, depending on your niche). It’s your blog, it’s your world. Use some slangs and your coinage if you feel like.

3. It’s okay to have and maintain your style but add some depth to it.

4. It’s okay to break some grammatical rules sometimes. It’s a blog post, not a research paper.

5. Write authoritatively (although sensitively); it shows you have a good knowledge of what you’re writing. No one will take you seriously if you’re not sure of yourself and your content.

6. Writing isn’t about blowing bogus grammars but connecting with your readers and making your content easy to understand. If you are not sure of the meaning of a word, don’t use it.

7. Use images to make your blog posts more appealing. Don’t forget to optimise your images with Smush like I earlier wrote.

8. Edit your posts multiple times to correct typos, grammatical and punctuation errors.

6. Unnecessarily Long Post

Bloggers are advised to write more of long-form content because they do better than short-form ones. They’re also good for SEO.

I get it.

However, it’s important to write concisely and have people enjoy your article than to stuff your content with irrelevant pieces.

This can piss off a reader.

People don’t have the patience to read unnecessarily long articles.

I usually scroll through such articles and if they’re unbearably long, I leave the blog.

Most of my articles are usually between 1000 – 2000 words. In fact, less than 2000 words.

I write more than that when absolutely necessary.

Your content should offer value, not just length. Your quantity should not be devoid of quality.

7. Inadequate Use of Paragraphs

One of the ways to make your content enjoyable for readers is to use paragraphs generously, especially if you use display ads to monetize your blog.

I know a lot of consumers don’t like display ads because they could be somewhat intrusive.

I see that as selfish because blogging is not an easy job, guys!

Content generation
⬇️
Content curation
⬇️
Writing
⬇️
Editing to near perfection
⬇️
Taking/sourcing for appropriate pictures/videos
⬇️
Uploading pictures/videos
⬇️
Content promotion

These and many more bloggers do to make information available to readers.

It’s only fair that they get rewarded for their labour.

However, as a blogger, having too many ads on your page can disrupt readers’ experience, and it’s unfair.

So you have to make sure that you have enough space for ads in between your content.

This can be done by breaking your points into paragraphs for increased readability.

A paragraph shouldn’t be more than four lines, five max.

Most readers are usually on mobile, so a line on your PC might be two lines on a mobile device.

There should be a lot of white spaces in your article. Just as you can see in this article.

I see some bloggers explain a point in a paragraph of ten lines!

It makes their articles tiring to read.

If I can’t leave the blog because I desperately need the information, I just endure reading it.

Don’t make your content clumsy and tiring to read. Use paragraphs generously.

8. Slide Pages

I’ll never understand why a blog post should be written in ten pages when it could be written as a single post.

This is just ridiculous!

Some bloggers do this to increase their page views.

This isn’t just right.

I usually exit those blogs on realizing I have to click through ten pages to read each point of the post.

My time is precious to me.

9. Regurgitated/Repetitive Content

There’s nothing exactly new under the sun. There’s nothing you want to write that hasn’t been written by someone else before.

That’s why Google brings up thousands of results when you type in the search box.

I’m not the first to write this type of content.

However, no matter how many people have written on a certain topic, there should be something unique about yours, something that stands your content out from the others.

You could offer a better/clearer explanation that provides more clarity to the readers, you could write from a different perspective or write points that haven’t been written by other website owners.

Your article should fill a void that other bloggers haven’t filled.

It is this uniqueness that makes readers read your article from start to finish even if they’ve come across a similar content; because you’re offering a different value.

I usually leave a blog that doesn’t have something different from what others already have.

Understand that no single article can cover all there is about a topic.

That’s why you should read what others have written concerning whatever you want to write in order to know the void to fill with your content, and not to regurgitate what has been written.

This also includes blog post titles.

I see a lot of regurgitated titles on Pinterest.

Bloggers copy other bloggers’ titles just because the content is doing well.

This is simply a lack of creativity.

Even though your content is offering a different value, try to tweak the title a little bit.

It’s creepy using the same title that has been used by someone else.

10. Deceptive Titles

If your major blog traffic source is Pinterest, you’ll understand the need to create different titles for the same blog post because you have to design multiple pins for the same post to drive consistent traffic to the post.

However, there is a difference between being creative with titles and being deceptive.

You can’t lure people to your blog with a title and offer them something different and expect them to stay.

They won’t because they’ll feel insulted and played. Plus, that’s not what they want to read.

How can you tell creativity from deception?

Here’s an example:

Title: 7 Habits of Highly Smart Women

I’ve had to create pin titles like:

7 Habits of Really Smart Women

7 Habits that Make You Smart as a Woman

7 Habits of Super-Smart Women

How to be a Really Smart Woman

7 Habits of Women who are Smart

7 Habits of Smart Women You Should Develop Now etc.

Another example, to give you a better understanding:

Topic: 6 Reasons Men Lose Interest in a Relationship

Other titles:

6 Annoying Habits that Make a Man Lose Interest in You

Why Men Lose Interest in a Great Relationship

6 Things that Make a Man Lose Interest in You and the Relationship

6 Behaviours that Can Frustrate a Man’s Attraction to You etc.

These titles aren’t different from the content of the post.

But if a pin says 7 Habits of Smart Women but the post is on 7 Habits of Productive Women or How to be an Indispensable Employee, that’s pure deception.

People hate to be deceived, thus, will exit your blog with the speed of lightning.

These are the ten reasons I usually leave blogs without reading their content.

If you do any of these, I hope you make the necessary adjustments so you can have more people consuming your content, and earn the reward for your labour.