You want users to spend as much time as possible on your website. Every good business owner or digital marketer knows that the more time a person spends on your website, the higher the possibility they will purchase the products or services you are selling.
But how can you keep your website visitors yearning for more?
The idea is to implement several best practices. These revolve around optimize your website and content for a more positive user experience, as well as allowing your website visitors to know what to expect from you as a company.
You may already be doing some or all the following items – or you may not be. Check out the following to find out which best practices will keep your visitors on your website and yearning for more.
Strong Branding
Branding is the way you set your company apart from the dozens (even hundreds or thousands) of other companies like yours. Through branding you are telling your target audience a story. It is about why you do what you do and how you do it. Everything on your website (and all your marketing or sales endeavors, too) should reflect this brand story.
A few tips for creating strong branding on your website include:
- Be consistent in the tone of voice you use through all channels (copy, blogs, conversations, etc.)
- Have a phrase, logo, or something else that users can associate with your brand. Use it on the bottom or top of every page. Repetition is key, so you can fix your brand in the mind of your audience.
- Use your domain name on everything from letter heads to business cards. This will not only bring in more website viewers but assists in pulling together your overall branding strategy.
- Use graphics that represent your brand’s values and voice. People are more drawn to imaging than content.
Positive User Experience
A positive user experience means that people who come to your website will have no difficulty navigating your website. The design should be intuitive and visually appealing.
You can do all the search engine optimization in the world and run numerous paid campaigns to bring visitors in, but if the user experience is suffering it won’t matter.
Why? Visitors will never stay on your website long enough to become familiar with your brand, which translates to meaning they will never be converted into customers.
A few tips for creating a positive user experience on your website include:
- Keeping page load times
- Using best practices for content readability.
- Avoiding stylized fonts, eye-straining color schemes, or cluttered design.
- Utilizing as much whitespace (empty space) as possible.
- Optimizing your design for mobile devices.
- Keep navigation simple and intuitive.
- Keep all forms clear and concise.
Quality Content
Content is still king, but the format options have changed. You want to include a variety of formats on your page to target the widest audience and make your message available in the way these viewers prefer. In addition to written content variations, formats could also include infographics, videos, or podcasts.
All content formats are important, but chances are written variations will be those most used. These include everything from website copy and blog posts to e-books and white paper.
In terms of website copy, blog posts, and articles that you host on your site, use the following practices to help increase readability. Great readability is vital in keeping visitors on your site longer.
- Use bullets and numbered lists whenever possible.
- Utilize H2 headers to break content up into sections.
- Keep paragraphs short.
- Keep sentences clear, concise, and conversational.
- Avoid fluff or filler words.
- Ensure the information is useful to your audience. It should offer valuable, relevant information or solve a problem your potential customers are having.
Free Downloads & Other Offers
Everyone loves a freebie. I do, and you do, so you can be certain your website visitors do, too. Free downloads and other offers are a wonderful way to both give your customers something of value to them and get their contact information in return.
Free downloads are typically in the form of e-books, which are useful resources in their own right. An e-book can help to set you or your company up as an industry expert, provide highly detailed information on a subject (versus brief explanation), and could help you garner more sales as a result.
The offer doesn’t have to be an e-book, however. It could also be a free trial service, discount, promotion (buy one get one), or anything else which might be of value to your target audience.
The contact information garnered from free downloads are down with landing pages with a sign-up form and clear instructions. Clear instructions may be “Sign up now to receive our free e-book on content marketing” or “Sign up now to receive 10% off your first purchase.”
Consistency in Design & Content
Our final tip for keeping your website visitors yearning for more is simply to be consistent. Consistency revolves around both your design and content, and includes:
- Maintaining the same design elements for all website pages
- Using the same tone of voice in all content formats
- Using the same one or two format types for blog posts
- Using images which are automatically associated with the content, your brand, and your industry
- Publishing content on the same days, at the same times, on a schedule your marketing team can commit to
By keeping all your design elements and content formats consistent you let your website visitors know what to expect. This not only keeps them on your website longer, but also increases the rate at which people return to consume your content.
If you are not already utilizing the above strategies to keep website visitors on your page longer, now is the time to do so. Create a checklist of things you need to accomplish to improve the length of time visitors stay on your website and methodically check them off over the next few days or weeks.
Increased time spent with your company is not the only improvement you will see. You will also see begin noticing an increased conversion rate from impression to lead, as well as lead to customer.