Have you ever heard the term “bounce rate”? Google defines “Bounce Rate” as the percentage of single-page visits (ie: visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page). It is believed that the bounce rate is a measure of visit quality. A visitor that comes to your site and stays, and visits multiple pages on your site will not be considered a “bouncer”.
Google advises that you can minimize Bounce Rates by tailoring landing pages to specific keywords. Then as people find your page via search or via a paid campaign like Adwords, the visitor will likely stay longer. In other words, relevant landing pages in relationship to keywords or phrases will likely keep you visitors longer.
So, what can you do to engage your website visitors and keep them at your site longer?
- Write good copy for your website. Relevant copy that speaks to the potential clients needs. Don’t skimp on words… the written content on your website is what brings visitors from search engines… it is the information hi-way – not the great looking website hi-way.
- Balance great design and design elements with your content. The look and feel of a professional marketing website is what gives visitors the first impression of your business.
- Make your call to action very clear. Your website conversion goal should be well planned and it should be very obvious what you want your web visitors to do.
- Earn trust from your visitors by ensuring that your phone number and address are clearly stated. Trust is also gained by giving away quality information. If you simply try to sell, sell, sell… people will likely not convert. In fact they may “bounce” back to Google.
- If you market to the immediate area of your business, place your address on your home page. This will help the search engines to send you more relevant traffic.
- Add Video to you website. Studies have shown that video on a website will keep visitors at the site longer. Of course the content of the video has to be relevant.
- Your website has to be a presentation. What can you do to take it up a notch? Video, polls, surveys, statistics, demonstrations and other interactive components can help engage your site visitor.
Introducing VideoSpokes.com
eKzact recently launched VideoSpokes, a service where we are encouraging our clients to become their own website talking head video spokesperson. The new site has been live now since just prior to Christmas. Already I can see clearly in the Analytics that visitors are staying at the site approximately 3 times longer than on similar sites without video. The bounce rate at the site is 50% lower than similar marketing sites. Surprisingly the pages viewed per visitor is also excellent – 5 pages viewed per visitor. Now, keep in mind that this is only a 6 page marketing website. People are engaged by the walk-on video spokesperson and are apparently listening to what he (ah… me, I) have to say.
I often say to people that the measure of a great website is not how many visitors come to the website, but how many of those visitors become a new prospect for your sales team.
If you website does not have a video spokesperson, you may be missing an opportunity or two.
Watch our blog or subscribe to updates to learn more about this topic.
If putting a walk on streaming video on your web site even just slightly interests you, give me a call and we can explore this deeper!
Cheers –
David A. West
Calgary Web Video Production
FOLLOW