Within seconds of landing on your webpages a prospective customer is going to pass judgement on your website. This will also influence what they think of your business. Within the blink of an eye they will stay or go. This is called your bounce rate. If your page is slow to load they will also leave. High bounce rates can affect your listing rankings.
If you don’t have something attention grabbing that immediately gets your message across within those first few precious nanoseconds they will be off surfing your competition.
Why people don’t stay on your website
Lowering your bounce rate means to make your website more engaging.
If your website takes forever to load up, people won’t wait. This can happen if your website is on a cheap shared server, or if you have a free DYI web page, and Flash can take forever to load. Trying to save money on your website can end up costing you much more money in sales and profits.
Uploading oodles of images to your site and self-hosted videos take a long time to load as well.
Ugly Websites Affect Bounce Rates
People won’t stay on an ugly website that is hard to navigate. Just plain with a simple layout is better. An attractive design still needs to have easy navigation. It will work better to encourage people to stick around and investigate what you are offering.
Remove Clutter: Too much clutter makes people turn away. If your landing page looks like a sale flyer, it’s too hard on the eyes when on the computer screen.
Clear Message: If your message is unclear people may click away. For example;If you sell used cars and someone Googled the term “used cars” then found your website listed in search. They then clicked through to your website and now they see a picture of your dog fetching a ball out of the water on that landing page. The visitor will be confused and just leave. It may be a cute photo but your visitor may just assume they are not on the right website that will help them find a used car and they will bounce.
Relevant Information: Make sure you have relevancy at all times. For example; don’t pay to advertise a special and then link to your main web page if the special is listed on a different page. Make it easy for them. If they don’t land on the page relevant to their search they will leave. Most people read the headline of the page first so make the headline valid to their search as well.
After the headline make your first sentences clear to your message. Start with “We are…” or ” We do…”
Simple Navigation: Have your navigation tabs easy to see and highlight categories important to your customer. If you sell clothing then the tabs would be laid out in departments. The same way the visitor would shop if they were physically in your store. Men’s, Women’s, Children’s, Shoes etc.
Suitable Images:The images you do choose to put on your website should be congruent with what your webpage is about. If you have a photo of your dog chasing balls, then have the story about that. Its OK to be a real person on a real website with a real business. Maybe you sell pet supplies and that is a picture of your Fido enjoying the new ball just released by one of your suppliers. It’s good to tie it all in.
Write Simply: When you do write various page posts make them quick and easy to read. Focus on being clear, concise and again, relevant. If the product terms are exclusive lingo to your business and not words understood or recognized by your average consumer – don’t use them. People don’t buy what they don’t understand.
Invite Engagement: Encourage your happy customers to leave honest reviews on your website and have them prevalent so other prospective customers can see how great your service is. Social proof is a big seller.
Above the Fold: Understand the importance of “above the fold”. This term from the newspaper era means everything written in this space is literally above the fold. In the virtual world it means everything that pops onto your screen without having to scroll down. Put your most important pieces of information here so it is immediately visible.
Minimize Choices: Limit the number of actions you want your visitor to make. Too many choices leads to confusion and a confused mind says ‘no’. The page gets too busy and your customer won’t know what you want them to if you have too many – “click this for…” “get this free now…” “leave your email and we will…”
As a local business you should be aware that the many of searches for local products are being done on a mobile device. Having your website mobile optimized is very important.
