You’re probably thinking to yourself, easier said than done, right?
WRONG.
I have a few tried and true ways of doing both of these things. It’s no secret you want more affiliate sales and email subscribers. You absolutely want people to stay on your site longer – but how do we accomplish this …?
A high bounce rate (what happens when someone leaves your website soon after landing on it) may make you want to change everything about your layout; adjust your user experience and go crazy changing up your content. Unless the consensus is that your layout and content is truly the problem, I suggest leaving it be. Today, let’s just focus on how we get the user to stay on your current website, continue browsing and interacting with your content and if you’re selling a product, how to get them to view and eventually buy.
If they don’t want to stay, then why do you?
Here’s a crazy little bit of information. Like the average attention span of 8-seconds (truly longer than I thought) people need serious exposure to your CTA’s (call-to-action, i.e. email opt-in; product) before they are going to even think about making a purchase. When I say serious exposure, I mean 7-13 times. It sounds like a lot, right? Sounds as if you are going to be filling up all of your site pages with ridiculous CTA’s and senseless pop-ups. Guess what… they work. What else does a person need before they are going to buy from you? TRUST. This is exactly why we don’t want them leaving your site the second they land on it. No one can build trust if they can’t stay on your site long enough to get to know you.
What we need to do is think of ways to keep them browsing – scrolling down and clicking through your content. By scrolling and clicking, your visitors have time to build trust and hopefully break the barrier from visitor to customer to client.
Where’s your Brand Awareness at?
Have I helped with your high bounce rate at all? If so, I’d like to talk about strategy. I want to make sure you understand who your ideal audience is and what it is that interests them. Otherwise, all of the little tricks and features and I delve out won’t work for you. Before you scroll down to continue reading this post, why don’t you figure out your Brand Awareness first, if that’s okay?
Content is King Queen
Great content is a must. Nobody will want to or is going to browse your site if they can’t find one remotely interesting thing there. Can they learn something? GREAT. Can you provide a solution to a problem they may be having? GREAT. Can you provide inspiration? GREAT. All of this is great content and will promote a longer stay by your visitors.
Intelligent Design
Nobody likes a slow, unresponsive website. With our attention-spans at 8-seconds (mine possibly at a 4), the information will go unread, nobody will bother to wait for all your content to load and they certainly won’t search through the noise to get to whatever it was that lured them there in the first place. Concise copy – remove the excess.
Websites should contain only your important information plus your main CTA’s. All of the other noise can be left to your blog (however, there, I don’t suggest too much of it either).
Pop-Up, Shmop-Up
Desktop is fine! Just don’t go sending pop-ups to someone’s phone. Nothing makes me run faster from my phone than a slow-loading site plagued with pop-ups. It doesn’t look good when the pop-up loads larger than life and faster than the site.
Roll, Roll, the easy Scroll …
I adore the rolling post feature for blogs. What a rolling post does is automatically load the next post as soon as you’re at the bottom of the current one. Why is this a good thing? It encourages your visitor to read the next post, oozes nothing but ease and all you need is your thumb to keep up the scroll. Your reader’s thumb is all that it takes to keep them exposed to your content, email opt-ins and CTA’s.
Keep them coming back
So, what do we want? Loyal readers who keep coming back, of course! What better way to initiate that relationship than to invite them to your email list and nurture your relationship there. Through your email list, whether it be through MailChimp, Constant Contact, ConvertKit; you have the ability to send your subscribers new, interesting content at your leisure all the while keeping them well informed of your brand and reminding them to come back to your site over and over again.
PRO TIP: Remember to personalize your newsletters (users interests tagging, segmenting and automation, names, etc.)
How’d I Do?
Every website differs from the other and needs a different plan of treatment, however, we are all reaching for the same result. If you have any tips on how to increase a user’s time on a website and how to boost conversions write them in the comments! I’d love to hear about your experiences.
