If a site is unattractive, do you bounce?

If you are searching for information on Google and you find a site that has some pretty good stuff but it looks ugly or unprofessional, do you leave or keep on staying to find other info?
Do you try to find another site with similar info that is more aesthetically appealing or do you just go ahead and deal with it?

For me I'm not too bothered about a website looking pretty... Like many people I'll give it a about 2-4 seconds to see if I understand what the message is... Therefore clear use of font, headings, sub headings really help... If its easy to read then chances are I'll scroll back up the page and take the time to read it... That said for sure a professional looking page helps, together with explanatory diagrams - but at the end of the day its words which sell...

roggy said:

If you are searching for information on Google and you find a site that has some pretty good stuff but it looks ugly or unprofessional, do you leave or keep on staying to find other info?
Do you try to find another site with similar info that is more aesthetically appealing or do you just go ahead and deal with it?

Click to expand...

It really depends on how "ugly" or "unprofessional" the site looks. If it was bad enough I would bounce immediately.

If it was bad but not wicked awful then I would stay long enough to at least take a taste of whatever written content or other content was on there. The whole time I am sampling that content though, I am going to have a sense of distrust in my mind. That slight sense of distrust will increase and cause me to bounce the first time I come across anything else that rubs me the wrong way on the site.

It's really a call you have to make at that time depending on how bad the site is.

If the reason you are asking is because you want to know "how professional" you really have to make your site, then I would say that "average" is enough to keep most people from bouncing right away. Still, if you upgrade the looks of the site you will help retain more visitors, increase the user experience, increase tendency to share socially and gain a lot of other little combined benefits. For me it is really about whether a site is worth investing money in to have it done somewhat professionally. IF it is a money making site, then probably yes. If the site isn't designed to make money then generally - no.

If i don't not really interested in the topic i would bounce right away, but if i'm really need to know about that i would pay some attention even the site is ugly.

Perception is everything, sometimes your audiences don't even know that your info is good or bad (in the general niche that users have low need for cognition) So sometimes attractive site with weaker content may be better in terms of audience. (Except it is really bad or total bs)

But for something like profession such as expert in some field, the site can be just simple and clean, people would give more weight on the words since they come to the site for expert insight.

I prefer to stay with the information provided and the stuff that I am looking for in the website. Usually it can happen that ugly looking websites can also contain fruitful information for your requirements. But this usually depends on browsers who would like to have a clean note of everything including the web design.

roggy said:

If you are searching for information on Google and you find a site that has some pretty good stuff but it looks ugly or unprofessional, do you leave or keep on staying to find other info?
Do you try to find another site with similar info that is more aesthetically appealing or do you just go ahead and deal with it?

Click to expand...

I would like to stay if the content is relevant and the information is really good to read that can give me the solution that I want.
If this will fulfill then I definitely stay on your site without looking any thing. The content matters for me.

To me It totaly depends on what the site has to offer and how the user experience is on that site.
For example if I am on my mobile phone, and the website is not responsive, then I will leave the site and search for another website that offers me the same info.
But in majority I will leave because of the bad not responsive layout.
On the other hand, if only you have the solution for a sertain problem, than I will stay, and probebly I will also stay if I am on my desktop computer as long as everything reads well.

I'll be honest if the site looks like it was made back in 1996, yah I'm out.. there is no reason to have that old look on a website these days.. there are so many CMS's with free templates that you can put information into.

A site can look bad, but if it has the information I am looking for I will stay.