You’re getting an increasing amount of traffic to your website. On the surface, this development is a good one.
More traffic means a greater number of potential customers who want to engage with your business in some way – reaching out to you through your site, signing up for your services, or buying your products online.
However, the number of visitors to your site isn’t the only metric you should evaluate. You also need to measure how long visitors stay on your site.
How to keep people on your website longer
Do visitors spend only a short time on your business website?
Many websites experience increases in traffic but continue to suffer from a high bounce rate. Bounce rate is the percentage of people who visit only one of your pages before leaving. They don’t click on anything else on your site; they don’t go to multiple pages.
And bounce rate itself is only one indication of user engagement. For instance, even if people visit more than one page on your website, they may do so quickly and then leave. Maybe they don’t stick around long enough to make a purchase, give you their email address, or engage in any other action that’s beneficial to your business.
Why do you want people sticking around for longer on your site?
People who stay longer on your business website find out more about you. You get the chance to attract them with your content and your products and services. There’s more of a chance that they’ll take a favourable action such as buying something from you, providing you with their contact information, or sharing your content on social media. If they’re only on your site for a short time, they likely won’t engage with you.
Business Web Design Tips
How can you keep people on your website longer?
- Responsive web design:
Make sure your website remains attractive, clear, and usable across multiple devices with varying screen sizes. - Clean, organised layout:
Avoid clutter, including dense text and too many images crammed together. Organise your site so that it makes sense to visitors. Your site should have clear headings that allow for quick navigation. Visitors should know what to click on to get to where they need. A well-positioned, compelling call-to-action should let them know what steps to take. - Key content at the top:
Visitors shouldn’t have to scroll extensively to find important content. - Page loading time:
Visitors get frustrated with websites that load slowly. Check that there isn’t embedded content or other site features that slow your site down. - Taking care with ads:
Ads can annoy people and, when they aren’t laid out properly, give your site a spammy look. Avoid pop-up ads. - More than one type of landing page:
In addition to your site’s main page, you should create other content-rich pages that different visitors with different needs can discover when conducting a web search. Posting in-depth, original content to your blog will also attract visitors to your site and encourage them to explore it. People can arrive at your site in different ways, and every page should inspire them to explore and engage with the content. - Internal links:
Your content should include links that lead to other pages on your site. Internal links help people navigate your site more easily and continue finding out more about you and how you can meet their needs. - Beautiful and clear visuals:
Striking images, high-quality graphics, and colours that contrast well are important. The and visuals should reflect your business’s tone and personality. Visuals should never appear blurry or convey an amateurish quality.
colours - Displays of expertise and credibility:
If you’ve garnered awards, positive reviews, and enthusiastic testimonials and endorsements, make sure site visitors can easily find these reflections of your fine quality. People are more likely to stick around if they sense that you come highly recommended.
This isn’t a comprehensive list of the changes you can make to increase website visitor retention, but hopefully it will give you a strong start. For additional advice and assistance with keeping people on your business website for longer, don’t hesitate to contact us.
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