The purpose of any business website is simple – get people to learn about your products/services, and convert those visitors into customers. The conversion of these new prospective customers can come in multiple forms, like purchases, email signup or lead submission. To achieve this, you need to keep the visitors interested and on your website as long as possible. The more engaged your audience, the better your chances are for conversion.
You can find out how long visitors are staying on your website (or particular pages of your site) by looking at the “bounce rate” on your website’s analytics. The higher the “bounce rate percentage”- the faster people are “bouncing off” (leaving) your page. You want to keep this number low! If you do not have analytics on your website yet – we recommend that you sign up for Google Analytics. We have an article here that can help you easily install this on your WordPress based site. Or you can always give us a call, and we can help!
Today, we are going over 10 tips to keep visitors on your website (and keep that bounce rate low)!
Make your website visually attractive
According to recent research, more than 94% of a website visitors first impression of any website is based on the visual appeal. If your site is hard to navigate, read or understand then your visitors are not likely to stay on for too long. Your website should be designed well and visually inviting.
Also, always make sure to put the most interesting/pertinent information above the fold. (“above the fold” is the portion of a web page that is visible in a browser window when the page first loads. The portion of the page that requires scrolling to see content is called “below the fold.”)
Make the site easy to navigate
Visitors are likely to find what they need in a clutter-free site which is easy to navigate. Make sure that you don’t have any broken links and try to incorporate a navigation bar with separate categories. If visitors can not easily navigate a website, they will become frustrated and leave. This means that your competitors, who may have an easy to navigate website, will end up with your potential customers!
Keep the overall design consistent
A site with too many different colors and designs for each page is a sure way to lose the visitors attention. Carefully select 2-3 colors for your website and use those consistently throughout. Ensure that your logos are the same size on every page and keep your headlines a similar size.
Make sure website load time is short
We live in a world now where everyone expects things quickly- and your website is no exception. If a website takes too long to load, customers will leave. Visitors don’t have the time to test their patience on slow sites. Moreover the ranking algorithm of Google also gives preference to faster loading sites. Need to check the speed of your website and make it load faster? We can help!
Choose the colors and fonts wisely
Throwing in multiple fonts and a variety of colors might seem like a good idea, but it ends up hurting the eyes of your visitors – and they are bound to leave your site.
Your website’s fonts need to be consistent and legible. Do not choose outdated fonts (ie: Papyrus) if possible. As mentioned earlier, the choice of colors should be kept to a minimum.
Link all your content
We have mentioned this before – to keep your visitors engaged and interested, you need an informative blog. Blogs help your visitors gain useful and insightful information, and it helps them see you and your business as a leader and expert in your field. Including links to useful articles you have written will help ensure a smooth transition from one article to another. Internal linking or linking of one post to another can be an easy way of engaging your visitors and keeping them on your site longer, engaged, learning and possibly sharing your interesting articles with others!
Use to the point titles for your posts
Create titles for your articles/blog posts that are to the point and easy to understand. If the visitor has to question if they will get the information needed or not from your article – they will probably skip the post. While crafting a title make sure to be clear about the content of the article. Also – make sure always to use keywords and keyword phrases! This will help send more traffic to your website. You can learn more about keywords here.
Add videos
Video dominates the web and it will remain this way for some time. Interesting videos are not only eye-catching and attention-grabbing – they are great for SEO. Videos help you keep your audience engaged and on your site for a longer time (and if a video is super interesting – people tend to share them!). Videos work better since most people prefer watching a video over reading an article. Are you shy? Don’t worry; you don’t have to get in front of a camera to make a cool video. You can find a few cool ways here, to turn your blog posts into informative, eye-catching videos. If you already have videos on YouTube (or are about to upload new ones) make sure to use keywords in the YouTube descriptions and then embed them on your website.
Create relevant content
While writing your website content, you need to keep in mind the kind of stuff your audience would actually like to or need to consume. Your ideal visitor/buyer is looking for specific information. Your content should always provide information which would help solve their problem. Do not divert, even in blogs, to offering information that has nothing to do with your “business niche,” just for the sake of getting anyone to your website. You want to target your specific ideal client. For example, if you own a car dealership – do not create content about “how to bake gluten-free dog treats.” This will only confuse readers and make them feel as if it was just click-bait to get them to your site and it will keep them away.
Add Fresh content
Always remember that content is still the king and you should always add new content to your website. Google loves fresh and relevant content and will reward you when it comes to search results! This is why having a business blog is crucial. Keep it updated regularly (once a week if possible). Content is what search engine spiders look for an index to show up in the search results. Without content, there’s nothing to index or rank. Pretty simple, right? This is also why flash websites are not SEO friendly. All of the text is encoded in a way that isn’t just simple text and is therefore unreadable for these spiders.
Have you checked out the bounce rate on your website lately? Try our tips and let us know how they have improved your bounce rate! If you need assistance with your website, web design, SEO, etc. – give us a call!