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10 Ways To Keep Visitors On Site: Watch Your Conversion Rate Soar

Search engine optimization, links, directories - all of these are well-known means to drive visitors to your site. But, what can you do to keep them there? The number of visitors who land on your site and quickly move on is called your bounce rate - the rate at which visitors bounce to another site.

So, here are 10 sure-fire tips to keep visitors on site longer - and maybe even bookmark your site for future visits.

1. Teach them something. You can’t swing a dead copywriter without hitting a Glazer-Kennedy “Who else wants to make a million dollars?” long-form sales letter on the web. It's page after page of hype, with a PS and a PPS just to make things urgent and “interesting”.

Interesting? That’s not what visitors want steaming piles of hype. Provide informational content no sales about your product or services. Teach visitors and they’ll look favorably upon your site.

2. Keep it fresh. Related to #1, if they've read it once they won't wont to read it again so keep adding new articles of interest to your primary demographic your ideal buyer.

3. Add a blog. Blogs can be added to a site with a click if you go with a web host with a big tool kit. Blogs are an easy means of adding new content. It’s a great way to add user-generated content (free stuff) and it’s a terrific way to build a site community a dedicated group of visitors who visit your blog everyday.

4. Keep the navigation really, really simple. First, navigation links should be large and clearly labeled. One boating supply site uses “Gulls” and “Buoys” as labels for their women's and men's clothing line. May be cute but it's also confusing.

Also, keep navigation consistent throughout the site. If you use a navigation bar at the top of the home page, keep it there on all landing pages so visitors don't have to look for it.

5. Provide a site map. It’s easy to get lost on a site that has a couple of hundred pages. A link to a site map helps visitors (and search engine spiders), and an omni-present link to the homepage keeps visitors from bailing on your site simply because they took a wrong turn.

6. Provide product pictures. Indeed, product pictures sell products.something about a picture being worth a 1,000 words.

7. Provide complete product descriptions. Skip the sales yak. Keep your product descriptions 100% informational. Be sure to list all product features. Then move on to #8.

8. Describe product benefits. Most site owners (and copywriters) describe a product’s features, i.e. 300 watts of raw power, a low-cut vamp, etc., but buyers don’t purchase features; they purchase benefits. Be sure to describe how the product will make the reader’s life easier, simpler, more productive, more fun or just better.

9. Provide numerous marketing channels. Some visitors will be comfortable ordering online; others want to order by telephone. Give visitors a choice and post that telephone number on every page of the site.

10. Keep it fun. Write in a chatty tone. Even serious subjects become more readable accessible when written in normal-speak not web-speak.

 

Do Your Pages Download Fast?

You can answer this question yourself. It is easy to do, and we will get to it. First, let’s be clear about what fast means.

A number of people have said my pages download fast. Some have given numbers. But what do they mean? I recently read pages should download in 4 seconds. An expert site designer reported my pages downloaded within 10-15 seconds. A marketing guru gave times from 8 to 10 seconds. Yet on my system, it takes about 20 seconds.

Why are qualified people reporting different speeds as the maximum acceptable? The difference lies in our individual connections to the Web. While the modem, disk, and CPU speed of your system are factors, the route traveled to your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and its performance are also critical. An overloaded ISP can really slow things down. Then there is the speed at which a server can deliver information.

Back to the question, there is only one way to answer it. While the opinions of others are important, the numbers they give are not, because all are trapped by the limitations of their equipment and ISP.

The only way to obtain good data is to delete your cache files. Your browser will not take the time to download anything already on your disk, even if you click Reload. Find your cache directory and delete all files in it. Now download your home page and note the time.

Given graphics repeated from page to page, such as navigation buttons, times to download subsequent pages will be faster, and need not be considered. It is the time to download the first page with no files in cache that matters, for this is what new visitors will experience.

Next, check the web for sites similar to yours. (If you have been to the site, remember to delete all cache files.) Check the download speed and compare it to yours.

A common reason for differences in times is the number and size of graphics. Ignore results for pages containing more or larger graphics than you use, for they really slow things down. If you find that pages similar to yours in size and graphic content download as yours do, you are fine, regardless of the numbers.

Why? Because all surfers are trapped by their system and ISP. All will have become accustomed to a speed they feel is adequate. You can do nothing to improve this speed, beyond being sure you are using a fast host. Thus if the download speed for your site compares favorably with that of similar sites, your visitors will be content.

If your download speed is greater than those of equivalent sites, take a hard look at your host. A server ften makes money by selling more capacity than it has. Then your visitors will always find things moving too slowly. (If you need a fast server, consider pair.com or jumpline.com; I use both and find their delivery speeds to be excellent.)

So ignore all those numbers given about maximum download times, because the people giving them are also trapped by their gear and ISP. Compare the performance of your pages to similar pages. If yours are as good or better, all is well.

 

Choosing the right colors for your website

Choosing the right colors for your website is just as important as selecting graphics and content. This article discusses what factors to consider when selecting your website colors.

Colors have many effects on people. Certain colors can invoke specific emotions in people. Emotional reactions can affect the image of your company in the visitors mind and can have a major effect or your company’s “brand”

If you doubt color evokes emotion, consider the phrases, “green eyed monster” “seeing red” or &ldin a black mood”. The green-eyed monster is a reference to jealousy, seeing red means a person is angry and a black mood refers to depression. People do associate colors with specific moods. Scientific texts have proven that different colors can make people happy, sad, relaxed, excited, angry or afraid.

Anything that can evoke those responses in people needs to be looked at carefully when designing your website. Colors tend to be classified as “neutral”, “warm” or “cool”. So, let’s take a look at some of them.

General Color Guidelines

The following guidelines are suggestions that should make your web pages readable for everyone.

• Text should be readable. Obviously black on white is the default choice but others are also good. White or Yellow or other light colors work on black or any other dark color background. But, Yellow, Green or Gray on white does not.
• Use colors that are attractive and pleasing to the eye.
• Select the colors that portray the image you want to give your visitors.
• For consistent colors across different browsers, use web safe colors.
• Do not use a normal color intensity images as a background behind text. It makes it difficult to read. If you use an image, use it as a faded watermark.
• Colors should be uniform on all your web pages to create a “brand” for your site and let your visitors know they are still on your website.

When you come to designing your website, choose you color scheme just as carefully as you choose your graphics and content. The overall appearance will determine the impression the visitor gets of your company and can mean the difference between success and failure.