What Drives Repeat Visitors To Your Site?
People always search for what they are interested in. Varieties of topics are found on the internet, and all it takes is a quick search to find the information they need. However, what most people don’t know is that there are things that make your website more memorable than others; these triggers stem from different aspects of your audience and site content.
We will explore three different types of triggers: First Impressions, Anticipation, and The “Stuck Factor”. It will also define each trigger group and explore how you can implement them into your website to maximize their effectiveness.
The First Impressions
People make quick judgments of you within seconds. A recent study found that people form a first impression within 90 seconds of meeting someone new. This is also true with websites: people decide whether they like your site or not within 90 seconds of visiting your page.
Flashy websites with cool graphics are usually perceived to be fun and exciting by their visitors, but many times these sites have no direction and aren’t concise in their purpose. This is the equivalent to walking into a room full of loud, obnoxious people who are all trying to out-shout one another; they lack focus and instead turn out to be exhausting rather than enjoyable.
After the initial excitement, your visitors will wander around looking for information. They may not find what they are looking for and leave your site because it is poorly organized or uninteresting. However, if you have the right information presented in a way that is definable, you’re more than likely to capture and keep their attention.
The temptation to use flashy graphics and eye-catching colors should be avoided as they can distract from the main purpose of your site. A flashy website usually lacks in getting viewers to come back because they struggle at presenting the right content in a way that is easy to understand and accessible.
Instead use clean layouts with easy-to-understand navigation. These are the key elements of a successful site:
•Use terms that are known and can be easily understood by all your readers. Avoid industry jargon.
•Your site should have a defined purpose, it is important to keep your message simple and focused.
•Make sure you leave out unnecessary content, just like people hate to wade through endless small talk, they don’t want to search endlessly for the main point of your site.
Anticipation
Anticipation is one of the most powerful marketing tools available. A simple definition of anticipation is the desire to know what will happen next in any given situation or experience.
There is a reason why commercials try to keep viewers in suspense. Most people tune in to a commercial and expect some sort of payoff at the end of the commercial. A good way to keep viewers interested is to create a feeling of anticipation before anything happens, even when there is no real payoff.
The anticipation triggers that you can use on your website are:
•A countdown timer or clock that counts down from a certain time (or date) will cause people to explore your site while they are waiting for it to finish counting down, most users will go out of their way just to see how much time there is left until it finishes counting down.
•Loading bars are used to show how far along a website is to completion; usually if users are able to see the progress they will want to stick around until it’s finished loading. A good idea is to add a small graphic on the loading bar so users will be able to visually see the progress being made.
•Make sure that your site has an active homepage; this doesn’t mean that you should make it look like an online party. Just have it updated with fresh content for your visitors, keep them interested and anticipate what might be posted next.
The “Stuck Factor”
Most people are very busy these days, and we don’t want to waste our time visiting websites with poor content. This is where the “Stuck Factor” comes into play: almost everybody hates reading something that is poorly written and poorly organized. Although this point alone shouldn’t be your primary focus, it will keep your visitors from leaving your site.
An example of this would be having a poorly designed website with many grammatical errors, or even better a site that has broken links. Nobody wants to visit a website that has broken links; this might give users the impression that your website is poorly maintained or possibly even infected with viruses.
This also goes for ineffective text on your sites; you should make sure all the text you use is properly placed and easy to read. A good test to see if you have effective text is if users can read it from a distance. You can also test your site on different browsers so you will be able to see how it looks through different eyes.
Preventing The “Stuck Factor”
The best way to prevent the “Stuck Factor” is to make sure to proofread everything you write, not just once, but every time you finish writing something. You also want to make sure that you have all your links functioning properly; there are many tools available on the internet that will help you check your links.
If your site has been designed poorly, or if it is full of broken links, you need to clean up what has been created. This will ensure that your site is free of errors and that you are presenting the right information to your visitors as quickly as possible.
A Quick Note About Reading Lifelike Text
If you want to check out some lifelike text, you can try 4FreeText.com, a website that reviews and provides an overview of various sites.
Shifting the Focus
Shifting the focus of your website is a great way to grab attention because it allows you to break the monotony of talking about a topic over and over again. You should try to address common issues with your industry or niche, or even just how your business functions.
Conclusion
A website that works well is one that gets visitors to come back. This is accomplished through the proper planning of your site, and by making sure that it has the right information and it’s being presented in a manner that is easy for visitors to understand.
Online marketing can be done on a large scale; however, you should make sure that you know what you are doing before you take the plunge into online marketing. Also, keep in mind that if you are new to online marketing, start small and work your way up from there. You don’t want to spend all of your time and money on websites that don’t do well.