Site traffic is super important, but what’s equally important (or arguably even more important) is how long people stay on your website. A bunch of quick hits to your site from your Instagram or Google search is awesome, but only awesome if those people hang around long enough to get to know your business, what you sell, and how you can help them. The more time someone spends on your site in a single visit, the more likely they will return later, the more trust you’re building with them, and the more likely that you’ll convert them into clients and customers. So, in this episode, I’m giving you 6 specific ways to keep people on your website longer.
No tricks! Just honest ways to make your website BETTER so that people want to stay around and come back for more. Stay tuned until the end as well because I recap all 6 of these tips in question form to help you decide which of these to tackle on your website right now!
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Many of you listening, like myself, don’t have a storefront for your business. Your website is your storefront. Similar to if I were to spend an hour shopping at Home Goods, I’m VERY likely to buy something versus if I walked in and stayed for 2 minutes then left, I probably didn’t buy anything.
Your website is the same way. That’s why time spent on your website matters more than quick hits to it that leaves fast.
When we think about SEO, Google does care about engagement on your site and they’ll rank you based on this. So let’s say they gave you the #1 page for your dream search result, but then everyone who is clicking to your site immediately clicks back to Google, which tells Google that you didn’t provide what you said you were providing.
People weren’t happy with what Google showed them. Google needs people to be happy! We want to keep people on your website longer and make them want to stay around! We want them to hang out, explore, sign up for things, read your copy, and click on multiple pages. All of these tips will help with this!
Preview: 3 out of 6 tips to keep people on your website longer
Tune in to the full episode to hear all of these amazing tips and the recap with questions you can ask yourself about your website right now.
1. Follow all common web standards and expectations.
People will leave your website if it isn’t intuitive. There are certain things at this point that we all expect a website to have. Most people have no patience for a website that doesn’t work the way they expect it to. You probably have experienced this as well! If it’s confusing, you click away.
Always assume that if your site is clunky, it won’t keep people on your website longer. They will just give up and go somewhere else. This feels funny to say… but, when it comes to your website, you are not special enough to wait on.
Here are some really great examples of the basic website standards:
- Your menu (if it’s on that page) should be at the top of the page.
- For people to know the text is linked, it should be underlined or a different color.
- Buttons are typically a rectangle with text on it.
- Your website should load quickly. Again, you aren’t a special snowflake. People will only wait so long.
- Your website should be mobile responsive - it people can’t figure it out on their phone, they’ll leave.
- Your website shouldn’t have tons of pop-ups that are hard to get to go away.
Adhering to what people expect on a website from a user experience perspective will put you in a great position to keep people actively engaging with your website!
2. Create fresh content frequently.
This will happen through blogging. Blogging isn’t dead. At all! I talked about this on another podcast recently with Rick Mulready. Listen to that full episode here!
A lot of times the people saying blogging is dead are doing something now like podcasting or Youtube, and they are BLOGGING those content pieces to their site.
When people are discovering you on your website, they’ll often click over to the blog to see what you’re sharing there. I know for me, many people discover my podcast through my blog on my website because we blog each episode.
Fun fact: I podcast now, but I’ve had an active blog on my website since 2016, and I do consider blogging as a way I’ve built my business. Even with podcasting now, I still blog. Plenty of people read the blog posts versus just listening. Or they’ll listen from the podcast player on my site.
By having content, you can guide people between posts and keep them on your website longer — whether they’re reading, watching a video, listening to your podcast through your site, doesn’t matter!
3. Don’t make people hunt for important information.
Don’t waste people’s time. Make things easy to find and navigate! Finding the information that should be on any particular page should be easy for the user. Don’t leave them guessing and hunting. You won’t keep people on your website longer by making them look for the information they came for.
If a potential customer is on your services page and they just want to know how much your service is or what your availability is, they shouldn’t have to hunt for it.
If your location is relevant to your work… looking at you photographers… that should be EASY to find on your website not buried in a paragraph about your family and dogs.
Tying this back into time spent on a website, if they can’t find what they are looking for, they will peace out and find someone else who can give them what they are needing.
Listen to the full episode to hear the other 3 awesome tips to keep people on your website longer. These things can be a major GAME CHANGER!
Let’s recap with some questions! Remember, we’re talking about how to keep people on your website longer like it’s a fun party they want to be at!
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- Are you following expected web standards for user experience? Or, is your website hard to navigate and confusing to the user?
- Are you creating content on your website via a blog? Are you giving people a reason to pop back into your website to see what’s new? Or it is the same as it was when you first launched it?
- Are you linking internally in your blog posts? And do each of your website pages have a clear CTA of another page to visit next?
- Are your headlines smart and well thought out? Then, are you delivering on the promise in the headline? Download 11 Headline Templates to Create a High-Converting Sales Page FREEBIE!
- Is the important info easy to find on every page? Or do users have to hunt it down?
- Is your site’s design engaging to the eye? Does it make you want to explore? Is it easy to explore? Is it fun? Or is it stale?
Fixing these things up can seriously change up the website experience for your audience, keeping them coming back for now and really engaged while they are there!
