With businesses spinning to get things back on track as the Covid-19 situation slowly eases, and the summer holidays come to an end, the last thing you need is a whole load of complicated, confusing information around how your website needs to be updated to improve your website’s ‘stickiness’.
By ‘stickiness’ we mean how long people stay on your site, and therefore how much more likely they are to do the thing it is you want them to, whether that’s submit an enquiry, buy something or even simply find the information they’re looking for.
Oftentimes the easiest, simplest solutions are the best, and although there truly are hundreds of things you can do, we believe if you apply the following four strategies for now, you’ll at very least make significant inroads into improving your website’s overall ‘time on site’ statistics.
1. The Age-Old Value of Lists
One of the easiest ways for people (and Search Engines!) to consume content is through lists. Whether you’re using numbers or bullets, lists help readers to digest content in a bite-sized, easy-to-read format and also give you the chance to convey quite a lot of information in a summary with more detailed information below, should a reader want to find out more.
Lists also make really useful rich snippets for Search Engines (you’ll often see a snippet appear at the top of a search query) so you’re really killing two birds with one stone.
When you’re compiling your lists, make sure to apply the following:
- Use clear headers for each point and section
- Keep summary points short and concise
- Link keywords in the summary points to richer information elsewhere
2. Great graphics and images
Generally, people are able to consume information more easily in visual format than written format, bringing to life the adage of a picture telling a thousand words. This is highly relevant when it comes to websites, where the use of strong images and graphics not only makes your site more visually attractive, but help visitors understand more about your business within seconds of landing on a page.
Using graphics to demonstrate a piece of information, from a bar graph or pie chart to an explainer graphic or flow chart, gives readers a lot of information in an easily understood way.
And of course, if you make sure you apply the correct Alt Text (the tag that explains what the image is about), and yourself as the source (if the graphic is originally yours) then you’re also likely to improve your SEO and the chances of your images and graphics appearing in search rankings.
3. Clear Page Sections/Headers
One of the biggest factors in improving readability and therefore the amount of time a visitor will spend on a page is how well the page’s content is segmented into clear, easily recognisable sections.
Using section headings, sub-headings and bold fonts to highlight relevant sections and information is a really simple way to achieve good readability. Be sure as well to apply the correct header tags – for example H1 tags as main page header, followed by clear H2 tagged sub-headers and H3 tagged secondary sub-headers to ensure Google is able to understand the page’s content structure clearly.
4. Responsiveness
The Covid Crisis has thrown the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons in terms of user behaviour. Where 6 months ago the predominant access to websites came from mobile traffic, the amount of time people have spent at home since the crisis began has seen a sharp rise in access from laptops, tablets and desktop computers.
What does this mean for website owners? Well, actually not a great deal if your website is already responsive, and a great deal if it’s not! Ideally, your website should already have been responsively built – meaning it can automatically detect and accommodate multiple access devices – from the outset.
But if that’s not the case, you should seriously consider how to rectify the problem – users are fickle, and grabbing and keeping their attention is a matter of seconds. A responsive website is a first marker for a visitor, and how informative and well-structured the content is once they’ve entered the site is the next challenge.
But hopefully the above quick actions should set you on the right path! For more information, and guidance on getting your website user statistics up across the board contact Realnet today on 01223 550800 or info@realnet.co.uk.