How to Make Visitors Stay Longer on Your Website

Did you know that 70-96% of website visitors who abandon your website never return?

As an online marketer or website owner, your primary goal is to convert website visitors into customers. But how can you achieve that goal when visitors don’t stick around long enough to read your content, let alone take any action?

It’s obvious that the more visitors explore the site, the more engaged they are, and the higher the odds of conversion.

So, how do you make visitors stay longer and pave the way to final purchases?

That’s what we are going to learn in this article.

Let’s give visitors a few strong reasons to spend more time on your website.

1. Meet Their Expectations

Yesterday, I was searching for “how to tell a brand story” on Google. My search engine results had great titles; they all seemed to meet my expectations. As usual, I clicked on the first link, but the content wasn’t something I was looking for. So, I jumped back on Google and clicked on the second link, where I found the exact storytelling tips that I wanted.

It’s easy to get clicks on your website via search engines, but if you want users to stay longer, your content must meet their expectations. To do that, you have to ensure that your content aligns well with the headlines that drew users to your website in the first place.

“The content must persuade users to take action. It must tell users why you are better than others,” says Markus Huhdanpää, CEO of Sortter.

Don’t let your content break the promises that your headlines make. A headline is click-worthy only when it holds content that users want to read.

2. Create Instantly Understandable Content

As per the survey conducted by Brafton, the average time users spend on a website is 2.17 seconds. That means you have two seconds to make or break users’ eye contact with your site. It’s a two-second opportunity to impress users at first glance.

These days, users rarely read entire blocks of content word-for-word. Instead, they scan the content to pick out words and phrases that interest them. Then if they find something that relates to them, they will read further to know what the content has to do with it. If they don’t find anything of interest while scanning, then they will jump to the next search engine result.

“Create your own visual style… let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.” says Orson Welles

To make visitors stay longer, you have to create easily scannable content. Ideally, the moment they land on the site; they should understand what the content is via headings, sub-headings, images, etc.

Here are some action tips to create easily readable content:

• Break your content into small paragraphs, sub-headings, images, quotes, etc.;
• Use short sentences;
• Use bulleted lists, numbered lists, or other symbols;
• Make sure that the sub-heading generates the curiosity to read more;
• Use a font size large enough to be easily readable; and
• Put some space between the content to avoid overcrowding.

Keep these tips in mind, and your website’s content will be good to go!

3. Call-to-Action : Choose Wisely

I have seen websites that throw pop-up boxes at users as soon as they land on the page, which looks forceful to me. Why should a user handover their email address without getting to know the site first? It seems like a stranger asking for your phone number without even knowing your name. Imagine what kind of impression that would leave on you. If it feels awkward, then how do you think your users would feel when asked for an email address the moment they land on your website?

There’s a right time to ask for everything, whether in your life or on your website. And the right time to ask for an email address, lead users towards making a final purchase, or give users a CTA is when they reach the end of the blog post or when they are about to leave your website.

“When people trust you, they’re more willing to press the action button that you want.” says Neil Patel, founder of Crazy Egg

CTAs at the right time help users decide whether to leave the site or not and whether they want to stay in touch with the brand via email or not.

4. Create a Variety of Content

Some visitors prefer words; some prefer images; and some want to watch a short video to consume your content. You can’t always predict users’ preferred methods of content. It’s better to prepare your website based on users’ preferences and let them choose how they want to absorb your content.

It’s time to convert your website into an all-inclusive content buffet, in which you serve content in a variety of formats to give various options to users.

Here are some content types that you must include in your website (other than words):

• Videos with eye-catching headings;
• Images telling stories;
• Visual data from experts to back up your facts;
• News relevant to your niche;
• Your most famous blogs;
• Past customers’ reviews with their profile images; and
• Animations, sliders, etc.

As interesting these all are, it is also necessary to maintain the balance of various types of content. Keep them limited so that your site doesn’t look like an overcrowded market. A few things here and there with enough space to justify the meaning of content is ideal.

Tip: Repurpose your written content in multiple formats to save time!

5. Increase Page Loading Speed

After implementing all above four tips, you just need to take care of your website’s loading speed. Since more than half of traffic comes from mobile users, users have grown more impatient than ever while waiting for a site to load content. According to studies by Think with Google, 53% of mobile visitors leave the site if it takes longer than three seconds to load content.

If your site is suffering from a high bounce rate, then chances are your site is taking too long to load, which will make users leave earlier.

Follow these tips to reduce your bounce rate and increase the time users spend on your site:

• Compress images without affecting their quality;
• Use a content delivery network (CDN) to distribute files on various locations and deliver content to visitors via the nearest server; and
• Connect with the fastest hosting service provider.

Wrapping Up

I hope this article helps you create a website with the most interesting, understandable, and easily readable content that make users stay longer and convert into customers. Constant practice along with improvement based on customers’ preferences will help users stay on your website for as long as possible.

  This article was written for Business 2 Community by Manisha Sukhyani.
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Author: Manisha Sukhyani

Follow @msukhyani

Manisha Sukhyani is a B2B writer with 8+ years of experience. She offers writing services to B2B and SaaS businesses. Her purpose is to turn concepts into stories. In leisure time, she hones her story telling skills.… View full profile ›

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