Seven website design ideas to make visitors stick around longer.
Pop quiz: What does a well designed website and your neighbourhood mall have in common? Answer: If you hang around both of them for long, you tend to spend more money buying stuff. So, is that what your website design doing to your visitors – encouraging them to stay longer so you can convince them to buy more of your products and services?
If not, read on to learn more about how you can quickly change that.
‘Stick around’ Web site design ideas
According to one respected British researcher and publisher of open access research, Taylor & Francis Online, people are prone to rate the visual appeal of your website within 50 milliseconds. That’s how much time your website designing agency has to convince visitors to stay just a bit longer on your site. It’s all about first impressions, and if your web site makes a favourable impression initially, your visitors are likely to stick around longer.
So, why do you need your web designer to make visitors hang around just a little bit longer? Well, because the longer they’re on the site:
- The more time you have to convince them to buy something
- The greater opportunities you get to cross-sell and up-sell
- The easier it is to get them to register, subscribe or join one of your visitor groups
Thoughtful website designing can deliver all these benefits – and much more. – to you. But the challenge for website owners and entrepreneurs is: How can I create a website that’ll give me that “please stay for a bit longer….” audience? Well, you’ve come to the right place to learn that.
Thoughtful web design 101
The concept of thoughtfully building websites isn’t new – it’s been around ever since the internet became a “thing”. However, web designing services providers have re-engineered the definition of “thoughtful” over the years. No longer is it considered thoughtful to bombard your visitors (and prospective clients.) with bells and whistles, popups and props.
In fact, those tactics are considered downright offensive these days. Today, all you really need to do is work with your web designing agency and put some thought into what your visitors want from a website. Here are seven thoughts to get you started:
1) Visitor friendly Navigation: When casual visitors and returning clients come to your website, they don’t want to spend time guessing what lies behind each click. Visitor-friendly navigation ensures that your visitors get to where they want (Product specifications. Sales Terms. Promotional Offers. Buy Now.) quickly
2) Accessible Contacts: Visitors shouldn't have to back-track or hunt all over the website to get to a specific page to contact you. Make sure your web designer provides them the option to do so from anywhere/everywhere
3) Consistency: Every page should be consistent. Headers. Navigation bars. Sidebars. Footers. Body. They should all radiate a common brand and be consistent in look-feel. A web design service that can’t deliver that isn’t worth working with.
4) Freshly Baked Content: Daily, weekly, monthly...and even several times a day during peak seasons … create new content frequently so visitors know where to turn to for the latest info - YOUR website.
5) Free Stuff: Have your website designer make lots of free stuff available for your visitors - PDFs, White Papers, Downloadable tools, Tip Sheets. It'll make even casual visitors come back for more.
6) Compete to encourage recurring visits: Hold frequent competitions, prize draws etc., and offer incentives so visitors will come back. Your web design should include elements such as redemption of discount coupons (buy 2-get-one-free), Free stuff (Free Newsletter of twenty Euro value) and Upselling (Buy a larger size and get 2% off.) or other such goodies. The more exciting and challenging you make these online events, the greater is the likelihood of recurring visits
7) Testimonials: Most website visitors these days are savvy enough to spot fake reviews and testimonials. So, work with your web designer to get these from REAL customers or visitors
These are just a few “thoughtful” elements that will make your visitors appreciate the effort you put into your website design. And an appreciative visitor is one that will likely want to explore your website further. However, they (these “thoughts”) are no substitute for sound technical design – like responsive design, faster load times and cross-platform (iOS, Windows, Android, Tablets, Smartphones etc.) availability.
Making thoughtfulness pay off
It’s time to make your thoughtful website design pay off. If you want a visually appealing site that’ll pass the ’50 milliseconds’ test, then you need to speak with a professional web designing agency to learn what they can do for you. The thing about well laid-out websites is that visitors keep coming back for more. And if your website continues to appeal to them, they’ll even get their social media network friends and colleagues to tag along.
Imagine that. Without spending too much on advertising and promotions, you could have your visitors raving about your website all over the internet. Isn’t that what great web designing should be all about?
