Five website tips that keep your visitors on your website longer

As a business owner with a website, what do you really want?

No, not more pageviews.

You want visitors that stay on your website longer, get to know you and your business better, and hopefully come back for more. There are website tips you can do that will make a huge difference for your visitors and put a smile on their face when they arrive there!

Think of it like your first date. They get a chance to observe you and decide if you are a good match for their needs, whether they’ll remember to come back in the future, or whether they’ll convert into sales. Your website can’t just look good, but has to also build trust in your customer.

Attractive Website Design

Imagine your date shows up messy. That’s going to be your first impression of them because it’s the first information you have to go on. The same goes for your website. Whether you invest on a web designer to design your website for you or do it yourself or buy a template, you need to pay attention to the website layout and visuals. Make sure your website looks attractive in a professional way, reputable and trustworthy. Make it easy to read and leave negative spaces when needed. A visitor’s eye can only handle so much stimulation so try to go easy with the animations and resist using every colour in your brand colour palette. I do suggest looking for inspirations to mix a few ideas to make your own and learning the best website layout hierarchy and the grid system.

Show them what they came for (Clear Navigation and Call to actions)

Your visitor has finally landed in your website, so what would you like them to do next? They most probably are ready to buy or hire you, they just need to be directed where to go next. If you would like them to buy from your online store, have a clear navigation at the top of your website and different sections in your website reminding them to visit your shop. If you want them to hire you for a service, show them where they can view your services, read reviews, book a consultation call by adding buttons leading to those pages or sections. To know if your website have a clear navigation, give your website to a friend or a family member to test it out and observe if they can manoeuvre easily through your website.

If you want them to sign up for a newsletter or an email list so they can build a deeper connection with you, say so with a clear and captivating call to action. You can have a pop up that appears at the end of a blog post, a simple section highlighting a email list sign up form, or even a simple button. It’s even better when there’s a cool incentive for them after they sign up, for example, a freebie, exclusive content, etc.

Show up with better visuals

Remember, a visitor is more apt to relate and trust a “real” person. Have images, GIFs and videos of yourself and your team in your website. These days, people are more drawn to moving pictures, so have GIFs, slow motion videos of you, in your website to make it more alive. Better visuals can also be pictures or videos of inanimate objects. For example, a coffee brand’s website can have a video background of a hot cup of freshly brewed coffee by a window on a rainy day, a retro themed sunscreen brand can have images of swimming pool and 80s themed summer, just to evoke the sensories and depict the brand visually.

Just make sure your media isn’t huge sizes so your website can load faster. (Better website speed, better ranking on Google search…more on that later.)

One of my absolute favourite places online to find high quality free-copyright stock videos is Pexels .

Fresh Quality Content

Majority of your website is going to be written content (unless if it’s just a photographer’s portfolio). You want the content to be written in your brand’s tone of voice and personality – that can be authoritative and formal, friendly and funny or romantic and classic. You can show personality through text and that way you’ll attract the right audience. Have a simple, efficient content without jargons or words from the thesaurus.

I definitely suggest getting a good website copy writer to work with your website designer so that your website can confidently address about what you do and how useful your service or product is for your visitor.

If you have a blog and your last blog post was five years ago, it’s time to write a new blog post to let people know you’ve not abandoned your blog. Having fresh content will let search engines like Google know that your website is still alive. Additionally, go easy on the ads. Monetising your blog is cool, but do consider your visitors. Having too many ads can make your website look distracting and spammy.

Responsiveness throughout all screen sizes

Last but definitely not the least, you want your website to be mobile and tablet friendly. To be honest, most of my visitors (maybe including you) are viewing my website right now, on a phone or tablet. We use these devices more than a laptop or desktop and they’re always with us on the go. You want your visitor to have a good experience navigating, reading, viewing and shopping your website, even on a small screen.

Most website builders these days have the feature of editing the mobile version or the tablet version of your website because you might want to make a couple of tweaks so that your website is user-friendly. For example, a section that has two columns side by side on the desktop version, may need to be reversed so that one column is on top of the other. Or another common example, is having a hamburger menu icon (the one that looks like three lines stacked on each other) that opens your menu list on your mobile and tablet version instead of displaying the whole navigation bar.

Again, it’s always nice to have other people test out your website, this time on different screen sizes. You can check out my previous blog post where I listed down the pros and cons of each popular website design platform for more website tips.