Here’s how you really use the web (and it’s not what you think!)
By Brian Terry on January 22nd, 2008You may want to subscribe to my RSS feed if you're new here. Thanks for visiting!
So how do you use the web? or more accurately how do you read the websites you visit?
It’s amazing isn’t it when we create our website we think it’s a masterpiece of creation.
We believe that when people arrive at our new website people are going to pore over each word you’ve written and every website graphic you’ve created.
You probably even designed it to be read something like this…
I would even hazard a guess that you think your ideas are obvious and people will “get it” right away and know exactly what link to click on next.
I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong and what people do most of the time is (if you’re lucky) is glance or quickly scan your page. Then click on the first link that catches their eye.
In fact you’d probably be surprised to know that there are huge parts of your page that your website visitor won’t even look at (yes it’s true!).
Here’s the cold hard reality of someone using (or scanning) your website…
The closest analogy I could find to express what happens is this… try reading a billboard at 45 miles per hour, because that’s how your website is seen by your visitor. Don’t believe me?
Go check your Google Analytics stats and look for the “Bounce Rate” and the “Avg. Time on Site” because those numbers will tell you the true story about your website.
Here are my own stats for BigSellingConversions.com during a recent promotional campaign:
What you’re aiming for is a low “Bounce Rate” percentage and a high number for “Avg. Time on Site” …simply because this means that your visitors are probably reading more of your web page.
If you’re not already using Google Analytics to measure what your traffic is doing then you’re missing out on some really valuable statistical data about your website. Analytics costs nothing to use, all you need is a Google account.
Let’s assume you have Analytics… so how can you improve the “stickiness” of your website design so people stay longer?
Here are 7 easy to use ideas you can apply to your websites landing page, squeeze page or any other page you care to squeeze or land on:
1. Keep any links you have to an absolute minimum, you don’t want people leaving your web page to go to another website.
2. Use short paragraphs of text making them easy to scan. Ideally you want your paragraphs of text to be no more than 4 lines deep. This helps make your page easy to scan (very important because we’re all scanners online).
3. Keep your website design simple and easy on the eye, as I’ve said before “simplicity sells!”
4. Make what you want people to on your web page really clear. If you want them to take a certain action on your web page tell them what to do, don’t ever assume they’ll just “get it”.
5. Don’t go overboard with lots of graphics (unless they help people use your web page).
6. Make your navigation simple and obvious so your visitors can make clear decisions about what’s on each page of your website.
7. Use contrast in the design of your website to make it attention grabbing.
How many of these ideas can you put to use on your website today?
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