Having a million visitors a day doesn’t mean much if they’re only sticking around for a few seconds. When you want people to complete an action (make a purchase, join a newsletter, download a free eBook – whatever your end goal is), you need them to hang out long enough to understand the value of that action and feel compelled to do it.
If your bounce rate is higher than you’d like it to be, consider making a few changes to improve user experience and send your visitors on the right path. Try these 5 ways to make visitors stay longer on your website:
1. Start with a killer design
Thankfully, creating a killer website is a lot easier than it used to be. One-stop shopping is relatively simple with a lot of services that provide hosting, domains, and customizable templates all in a single package. Try playing with templates until you find one that optimizes and improves the flow of your website. You might not need to make any significant modifications if you find gold in one of the prepared offerings.
If your website is a little too complex for a template to handle, you might want to hire a web designer. Custom solutions will need to be built from the ground up. If all you need is modifications to a template that you aren’t sure how to make on your own, you’ll probably be able to save some money by encouraging a pro to go the semi-homemade route.
2. Get to the point immediately
If you thought that hiding your main point in your text would make people stay and read for longer, you might want to rethink that.
People won’t become interested in the message you want to convey if it feels like work. Structure the points in your text in order of importance, or strategically order them if every topic is coequal.
If you’re attempting to draw them to a specific area of your website, make sure they know from the beginning where the post is going. Use clear, descriptive headlines, and break text into smaller blocks. People will browse at their leisure and understand why they’ve visited.
[Tweet “Hiding your main point within your text won’t make people read for longer – @CooperEviee”]
3. Use internal links and clear calls to action
External links are an important part of your SEO strategy, but so are internal links. If you place internal links within your text that will lead people to more information, products, or services, you’re giving them a path to click through. You aren’t sending them off of your website and risking that they’ll find someone else who better suits their needs.
Be a little more self-referential. You might wind up sending people to areas of your website that they love, but never would have discovered otherwise.
4. Improve your loading times
One of the easiest ways to send people running is to overlook your load times. If your website takes seconds to load each page, people might feel remarkably impatient. Despite the fact that a few seconds isn’t going to put a damper on anyone’s day, people have an expectation that the internet be zippy and quick. Make sure you aren’t holding onto any old plugins or add-ons that are slowing down your website. Clean things up a bit.
Mobile loading times should also be a cause for concern. Google has little to no patience for websites that haven’t yet optimized for mobile, as more than half of all web traffic comes for a smartphone. A phone is going to take a long time to display the desktop version of a site, and when it does, the results will be hard to use. That’s why they bury websites that aren’t optimized deep within the search results. Modernize and optimize for best results.
You might also like: Speed up your website – 5 quick and easy tips
5. Create shareable content
If your content is being shared on social media, that’s usually a sign that it’s exactly what people are looking for. They see so much value in it that they want to share it with their friends who may also find it helpful. This works as free promotion.
It drives traffic to your website and potentially creates customers in the process. If people like what they see, they’re going to want to stick around for more. If every piece of content you write is as unique and valuable as the one before it, you won’t need to beg people to stay.
[Tweet “If every piece of content is unique and valuable, you won’t need to beg people to stay – @CooperEviee”]
Getting visitors to stick around is relatively easy to do by yourself. You may not need any help if you’re well versed in running and maintaining your website. Take note of the things your visitors love and make them even better – it’s really that simple.
About the author:
Evie Cooper is a project manager and an experienced team leader, working as a part of the team behind UK Area Code and Postcode-Checker – online knowledge libraries. She is a staunch advocate of constant self-improvement, and might usually be found online, learning new things about business promotion and sharing her own tips and ideas. Feel free to reach out to her on @CooperEviee.
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