Microsoft Research has published a study that says website visitors spend a fleeting 10 seconds deciding if they want to stay on your website. That means you have to make sure your website design strategy captures their attention immediately.
Here are a couple of tips to help you make the most of those fast first impressions.
Concise, Captivating, Pain-Focused Messaging. If your visitors are leaving in just 10 seconds, you have a brief window to catch their attention and make them think, “this company gets my issue.” You achieve this by crafting messages that reflect your prospect’s struggles. When you show that you recognize your visitors’ pains, they are more likely to stay long enough to find out how you can help resolve those issues.
Remarkable Solutions. After you have proven that you understand your visitors’ pains, then you need to provide unique and effective solutions. If you sound like all your competitors (whose sites your visitors have already looked at or are planning to look at next) why should they stay? They are looking for something different, something remarkable, something that grabs and holds their attention. Give it to them right there on the home page. Reality Marketing shows you how to create pain messages and the remarkable solutions that work with those pain oriented messages.
Compelling Images. People connect with other people. In fact, men and women both connect more easily with pictures of women. While the images on your home page don’t have to be people, you need to make sure they deliver the emotional connection you need to grab your website visitors’ attention and engage them with your company.
Video. People remember, relate to and are better able to share stories than, say, statistics. Video matches the way most people want to receive information about your company. Good videos tell stories. Research shows that video is proven to extend the average time-on-site data across a variety of B2B and B2C websites.
Testimonials. Your visitors don’t believe you but they do believe your customers. Testimonials, success stories, and case studies all help your visitors feel safe, assuring them that you are able to deliver on your marketing promises.
Educational Offers. If you did well adding the content above, then it’s likely that your visitors passed the 10 second barrier and they clicked around a bit. If they like what you have to say, then they might want to get to know you a little better…but if you only have a single Contact Us form and they aren’t interested in a sales conversation yet, then they have no choice but to leave and keep looking. Add the Trio of Offers, No Risk, Low Risk and Direct Business Offer to increase your conversion rate ten times.
Google tells us that this happens 99% of the time. If you have 500 visitors a month to your site, 495 of them are leaving without ever identifying themselves to you. Think of all those potential customers turning around and walking out the door. If you offer them educational information, conversion rates can go as high as 15%. Taking those 5 leads and making them 75 leads. That’s the kind of performance improvement you can get excited about.
Take a hard look at your website right now! Are you letting prospective customers walk out your door? Click here to learn how the experts keep visitors on your site and convert those visitors from lurkers into leads.