Keeping visitors on your website longer will increase your chances of converting them into a new customer and increases the chances they will come back to your website. One helpful tool; Google Analytics tells you how long visitors stay on each page of your website. If you are noticing that your customers are not staying long on a particular web page, here are six (6) tips to help keep them on your website longer.
Make sure you are regularly checking Google Analytics to be aware of how long visitors are staying on your site, which pages are getting the most visitors and if the time on each page is increasing or decreasing over time.
Keep content readable and simple. People go to different websites to look for specific things and more than likely they will scan the content on the page to see if the page helps with what they are looking for. Make sure your content is easy to read for visitors, so they can see if it is what they are looking for. Consider using numbered and bulleted lists as well as section headlines. If the content meets their needs or interests, the visitor will stay longer the get the information they are looking for. Make sure to add internal links to other relevant information that could help the visitor as well, which could get the visitor to stay longer.
Add in calls to action for each page of your website. If a visitor is looking for information, and find what they are looking for, then they may just leave the website. If you add in a call-to-action on the page, they may click on this action which results them in staying longer on your website and perhaps taking some other action like requesting help, leaving their contact information or signing up for an email newsletter. Make sure the CTA is visible and not buried deep in the text, so visitors don’t just pass by it.
Include videos: adding relevant videos to your website will help keep visitors engaged. Videos are easier than reading text, so complementing certain text with videos to deliver a message could help keep visitors on your website longer. If visitors like what they watched they could go to different pages to watch other videos or to learn more information and make even make a conversion.
Add customer reviews and testimonials to your website: people want to do business with companies that are trustworthy and that serve customers like them. By adding customer reviews, you show that you are a business that people have used and trusted in the past. It helps to gain trust with new website visitors, which will keep them on the website longer to explore exactly what your business does. Add reviews or testimonials to your home page to immediately capture their attention.
Add a blog to your website (and regularly update it). By having a blog on your website, not only are you showing new visitors that you are an expert in your field, but it will also keep them on your website longer. You want to regularly update your blog as well. That way people can come back to your website and read new articles and news. Make sure your blog posts are sharable, that way if these new visitors enjoy your content, they can share with their network which will bring in even more visitors!
Keep important information for each page above the fold. Above the fold is the part of the website a visitor can see without scrolling. You want to hold important information here because people have short attention spans, and they will go through each page looking to see if this website is something that captures their attention, or if they are going to go back and look at a different website to find answers to their questions. By having important information above the hold, you can capture the visitor's attention and then they will keep scrolling to learn more. This will result in the visitor staying on your website longer.
By keeping visitors on your website longer, it increases the chance the visitor will make a conversion and turn into a customer.
Be sure you are giving your visitors the information they are looking for and helping them make a quick decision. Provide good customer support, and lead visitors to make that conversion. Websites are just one tool in helping you move customers and potential customers down the path of becoming a customer and buying products and services from you over and over again. Getting visitors to stay on your website longer, and viewing more pages and information, will help you achieve that for your business.