Get New Visitors To Stay Longer

Aug 202008
 

One of the things I have been working on the past couple of days is the length of my visitors session. Overall, I am very happy with the results, and about 19% of my visitors stay at least three minutes with several page views. Over the past month I have made a few changes to the site, and comparing to the previous numbers everything has been improving. Visitors new and old are staying longer. I have one problem area though, and that is the 30-60 second visitors. This number has been increasing, and I believe it’s because my instant bouncer is staying just a little longer. So now I am looking for ways to get them to break that one minute barrier. Once they do that, my odds of having another regular just went up.

By Moms

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I found a site that gave me an idea that might just help me out. By Moms is a web portal for Moms and Women in general. One thing that caught my eye, and will most likely catch yours, is the main animation under their logo. What’s it for? To sell their categories, to sell their site, and to quickly sell you on reading their content.

Sell Your Content

When I say “Sell Your Content”, I don’t mean for money to an outside source. I mean sell it to your visitors. Sell the idea that this site is for them, and that they should read your content. What’s one of the best methods to selling a product online? Show a picture of it. All their categories are in the header, you don’t really need their animated menu to use the site, but that new visitor certainly needs it.

Animated menus like this get that new ten second visitor clicking a few times more than normal just to check out the images. Now that ten seconds is thirty, and what happens if they SEE something they like? Whamo, you got them. I’d love to know if this site always had the animated menu. I would also love to know if they had a big decrease in bounces when/if they added it.

It’s always a good idea to have something to draw a visitor into a second page. An example is my “Action Start Here” banner that I currently have on my home page. Using the My Moms site as an example though, you can see muliple things that can get that second page view, and use pictures to do the work. Not the right target visitor? No problem, check out this other picture.

Where’s the Beef?

Feb 292008
 

Here is an issue I have been seeing a lot of lately, three equal columns with no obvious beef. It really is there, but it doesn’t stand out to you. You have to look for it. When is say “Beef”, I mean the main content or purpose of the page.

To often, in an effort to squeeze in more menu items, or ads, the left and right columns of three column websites get a little fat. Given a little time, and a slip in good judgment, the main content literally gets squeezed down. Two bad things happen when this occurs. First the obvious, the emphasis on the main content or panel devalues because more time is spent looking at the alternate columns. The second, less obvious, is the fact you are creating vertical scroll when the content gets squeezed horizontally. Vertical scroll forces the visitor to use the scroll bar, which they don’t always do, and it may also push some important content below the fold like a “Buy it Now” button.

Note to self. Keep your menu columns to a minimal width, and let your main content be the main attraction.

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