How Do You Make People Stay in Your Website Longer

Every entrepreneur knows that having a website is one of the most effective ways to establish an online presence on the internet. A well-constructed website is your business’s address on the internet where people can readily come to visit and look at what you offer anytime. This holds true whether your company is selling cosmetics, skincare, project management software for construction companies or whatever else product or service you can think of.

However, just because they’ve successfully landed on your website, it doesn’t mean that they will stay there. According to research conducted by the Nielsen Norman Group, users typically stay an average of 10-20 seconds unless the website has something of value to the user, then, they stay longer.

This means that to be able to have the user stay longer on your website,  you have to effectively communicate the reason that you want them to stay in 10 seconds or less.

How do you make people stay on your website long enough to read about what you offer? Here are some suggestions that you might find helpful.

Create A Visually Engaging Website

A well-designed website might help for it to get past the punitive 10-second rule. Because let’s face it, when it comes to websites, people do judge a book by its cover.

So that your website is able to do what it was set to do, make sure that you are clear about your target audience when you first design your website. Once you know who is your audience, then you can tailor your website – from its color, it’s tone of voice, as well as the design elements to talk to your target market. Tie it all together for a visually pleasing experience for your audience.

Don’t worry if you don’t have the budget or the experience to make a website because nowadays, there are a lot of companies online that offer templates that you can customize using the drag and drop method. There are also websites that offer royalty free professional looking photographs that you can use in your website.

Be Clear on Who You Are and What You Offer

When people land on your website, make sure that you are clear on communicating what your website is and what you offer. Make sure that your users know why your website is relevant to them. Because, if they can’t figure out what you are and what you do, they’ll just quickly move on to another site.

To do this, make your text short concise and easy to read. Remember that people usually just skim thru your website to quickly find what they need, and this can be hard to do if your text resembles a novel in your landing page.

Easy Navigation

When you’ve successfully made it past the 10-second rule, your next concern would be to make sure that your user is able to go around your website with ease thru easy navigation. An ill-organized website is like going thru a labyrinth, not knowing where to go to find out what you need. To make sure that your website is easy to navigate, here are some helpful suggestions:

• Use Fonts With a Minimum Text Size of 12. You want to make sure that people can read the fonts of your website text. If you make the fonts smaller for whatever reason, search engines can flag your website as suspicious. Also if you can, steer clear from scripts fonts no matter how much you love them, and also from narrow fonts.
• Divide Navigation Categories Clearly. Make sure that your categories are clearly defined especially if it has multiple subcategories. All of your multi-tier categories and subcategories should be clickable links.
• Install A Search Bar. Search bars are the saving grace of navigation, so make sure that you have one on your website. Users nowadays are always in a hurry, and most of the time they don’t want to bother going thru the entire website, they just type what they need on a search bar. If they don’t find it, then they move on toa another site.

Use Interesting Visual Content

People love pictures, and one of the easiest ways to make sure that people stay on your site longer is to put in a lot of visual content. This can include explainer videos if you are doing a product description or maybe a service. You might also want to use infographics instead of using text in your blog post to make your readers stay longer.

 Make Sure Your Content is Easy to Read

It’s important that your content into easy bite size pieces so that it’s easier to consume, even if your read is just skimming thru it. Remember people nowadays want to see what they need quickly. Make sure that you use correct formatting with your content, as well as use the correct headings and subheadings so that you can deliver your message quickly and effectively.

This holds true no matter what kind of content your website has, in fact, the subject doesn’t really matter. When you do a blog, make sure that the format is in bite-sized paragraphs that contain no more than three sentences, as well as descriptive headings and bullet points.

Making sure that your content’s main points come across fast will increases that chances that your visitors will stay on your website longer.