If you are familiar with your website analytics you would have heard of a metric called "bounce rate." The bounce rate is the percentage of website visitors that leave your website after visiting one page. A low bounce rate means visitors are engaging in your website and spend time exploring it. A high bounce rate means you are doing something wrong - people are coming to your website and leaving without really interacting.
A normal bounce rate for websites is around 60-70%. This means that over half of the people who visit websites leave after just viewing the page they land on. By implementing the following six tactics you can engage visitors and lower your bounce rate.
1. Create A Simple and Eye-Catching Web Design
These two ideas may seem conflicting, but often the most eye-catching designs are the simplest. Take Apple, for example. Their designs are sleek, clean, and simple, yet everyone's eyes gravitate towards them. When web design is clean and simple it can give the user a sense of time and space and if the design is aesthetically pleasing the user is naturally going to be more inclined to stay on the website.
2. Make Your Brand Personality Shine
Just because your actual website design is simple it doesn't mean it has to be cold and boring. Inject your brand and team's personality into your website. Choose the perfect blend of colors that represent the business and transmit a message to the audience. Create wording for each page that is in line with your brand personality. Is your business easy going and laid back or fast-paced and current? Reflect that in your website copy.
3. Be Empathetic
Even if it sounds counter-intuitive, try to talk about yourself and your business as little as possible. Instead, you should be empathetic. Talk to about the website user and tell them how your business can help make their lives easier with your product or service. This should be apparent in the headlines, subtitles, and images as well as the actual website copy.
4. Content Should Match the Users Objective
Not only should you be empathetic, but each page needs to accurately describe and match the reason the person has arrived at the page. Content from one page to another should not be similar, but each page should offer highly focused and exclusive content to the visitor. You should also offer valuable free information to the visitor, either in the form of a resource page, a blog, or free media such as white papers and eBooks.
5. Headings, Bullet Points, Photos and Videos
A huge block of text on a web page is very unappealing. You need to break the page up into bite size pieces. Headings and sub headings are essential. Ideally each piece of content on the page should be able to be read and make sense in isolation form the rest of the content on the page - this accommodates the user's process of scanning for appropriate content.
By adding relevant images and video to a page you break up the content but also create attractive features for the eye to be drawn to. They can also contribute to making the overall page aesthetically pleasing ans attractive.
6. Showcase Convenience
Make your navigation simple and intuitive so users can find exactly what they are looking for in less than three seconds. Foe example, put contact information in an easy to find location, with its own tab in the navigation and at the top right corner of the page. You should also always put a second copy of your contact information in the page footer as well.
By reshaping your website so it is visually attractive, providing valuable and highly appropriate content, presenting the content in easily digestible amounts, and having a logical and intuitive navigation, the user will be more engaged and more likely to convert into inquiries or sales.
For more information of what makes an engaging and effective website check out this article, The 11 Elements of a Great Website Design.