8 Seconds for Your First Impression

Visitors decide within 8 seconds if they will stay on your site or if they will hit the back button.  Statistics show that 50% of users leave a website within seconds of coming to the site.  If you utilize SEO and PPC – you have either worked hard or paid to get that traffic to your site and it makes sense to try to lower your bounce rate as soon and as much as possible.

If you have a bounce rate above 70% – one of the first places you should focus on is your website.   Focusing on optimizing your site can help in lowering the rate in which customers leave your site without interacting with it.  A few ideas to keep in mind:

  1. Place important information & images above the fold.  Above the fold information is what a user can see without scrolling down the screen.  In addition, users typically scan in an F-shape, looking at information above the fold first.
  2. Is your phone number visible?  Customers may not want to call you right away or even at all, but this information is important to have readily visible.  These policies help customers have peace of mind when shopping or viewing information on your site.
  3. Clean up big blocks of text into easy-to-read statements. Make sure your sites copy is easily readable and keep paragraphs short. Bullets are a great way of sharing a great deal of information, in an easily digested format.
  4. Make sure any links are clearly links and if any text is underlined – make sure it is linked.
  5. Make sure the user can clearly determine what to do next.  Having clear ‘calls to action’ can also help to increase your conversion ratios.
  6. Include your businesses privacy and return policies, web security buttons and any client testimonials you have approval to share.

We will take a look at other important aspects of optimizing your website later this week, but keep in mind optimizing your website for increased conversions shouldn’t be an afterthought.  It can often take weeks or even months of A/B or Multi-Variate testing to get the right copy above the fold, with the right image and call to action.