The time users spend on browsing your site is a proxy for the effectiveness of the resource. More often than not, the reasons for a quick exit are unpleasant design, irrelevant content, and annoying navigation. Long sessions indicate that the battle for customer attention is over.

Let’s look at 11 ways to keep visitors on the site

1. Attractive design

From 10 to 20 seconds it takes the visitor to decide whether to leave the site or stay. Attractive, not cluttered design, helps to increase the time spent on the site.

First, high-quality design pages pleasing to the eye, and secondly, the elements of design are in their logical places – no need to waste time looking for the right section, and the eyes do not stray from the variety of shapes and sizes. Therefore, the first thing to pay attention to when deciding on the retention of visitors to the site – the design.

2. Comfortable navigation

The second important factor – it’s easy to navigate site. Thanks to the World Wide Web users have access to tons of information on a huge number of sites. The client will not waste a minute to study the intricate principles of navigation – he will simply leave for a competitor. Try to make the pastime on your resource was pleasant, and the routes – logical. The main menu should be filled only with important pages, and the search bar should be visible at a glance.

3. Matching content to headline

You often find that a unique headline is in the text just to attract attention and has nothing to do with the content of the content. It is difficult to gain the trust of visitors in this way. Remember, while the headline should be “juicy,” it should also reflect the main idea of the text.

4. Home page – for the main.

The site will be popular if the visitor will find value for himself. Offer to place in the most prominent place the information, why the client should choose you. This can be a unique offer, favorable terms of purchase, information about customer support actions.

5. Relevant content

Content becomes a “workhorse” when characterized by regularity, relevance and usefulness. Old information is not worthy of users’ attention, nor is publicly available, non-unique information. You can satisfy the tastes of all visitors by experimenting with content formats: infographics, blog articles, notes, comments, video reviews, social media accounts, webinars and more. The toolkit of the modern marketer is extremely wide.

Previously published materials should not be written off. Articles can be updated from time to time to include new information. The experience of creating e-books is interesting.

6. Accessible text

In search of relevant information, the user will not painstakingly re-read all the text located on the site. Ran through a resource and noticing the desired information, the visitor will close the tab, even if in fact the desired information was there, but he did not see it. Hence the conclusion that the information should be clearly and brightly placed, and it must also be suitable for “horizontal reading”.

How to implement this:
Use a structural division of the text into small paragraphs. Readers find shorter sentences and phrases easier to understand.
Separate units of meaning with headings and subheadings. Don’t neglect lists and bullets, they work great for dividing up text.
Apply means of visual highlighting, such as using bold type. Adhere to recommendations for allowable line spacing and font sizes – they don’t strain the eye and promote perception.
Select graphics that illustrate the content of the text. It is appropriate to use videos, charts, diagrams and other methods of emphasis.

7. High speed loading pages.

According to statistics, the user is willing to wait no more than 2-3 seconds to load the site. Then, in most cases, his patience ends – people close the tab. Therefore, close attention should be paid to the response rate of your site. What can you do to improve this parameter:

Compress large images.
Reduce server response time by working through CDN.
Get rid of plugins that slow down the resource.
Remove unnecessary parts of the code.
A large number of user redirects to other sites slow down your own resource – optimize them.
Do not neglect the caching.

8. Internal links

Internal links in content serve several purposes:

They expand the amount of information you are willing to share with the user on a topic.
They increase the number of views and improve SEO.
It is important not to overload the text with internal links, in most cases it is enough to place 2-3 pieces in the article.

9. Visual effects

Interactive ways of presenting information have recently become widespread. This is understandable: texts designed with videos and infographics, with the addition of images are more attractive and easier to understand than a dry set of letters.

With the help of this detail significantly increases user engagement and increases the time they spend on your site.

10. Pop-ups.

Pop-up is an unobtrusive attempt to delay the “fugitive” from the site. Pop-ups of the “exit-intent” type, which appear at the moment when the user intends to leave the site, are extremely common. Usually they briefly present convincing information as to why it is worth it to linger. This tool really reduces the number of bounces and increases the conversion rate.

Examples of the use of pop-up:
Offer to read related articles.
Give free “plushies” in exchange for registering with your contact information.
If a possible reason for leaving is because you have questions, offer to contact a customer service specialist to address them.
Encourage them to leave a review about you.
Ask for help spreading the word: offer to share your content with friends. You can offer to join your Telegram channel.
Inform about new products that the user doesn’t know about yet.

11. Call to action buttons

Above we talked about the fact that you should not “hide” information from the view of readers. However, we noticed a tendency that users often leave the site as soon as they get acquainted with the necessary information. To prevent the number of such bounces, it is advisable to place concise and “stylish” buttons to call to action at the end of each post.

It is important to remember that in this case, the CTAs must be consistent with what the text was about. Relevant, clear and bright buttons contribute to higher conversion rates and profits.

Conclusion

In this article, we’ve looked at 11 ways to work with your user engagement score, reduce bounce rates, and increase conversions. We hope that the listed methods will help you in solving the difficult task of keeping visitors on your site.