Professional football coaches will tell you “Not For Long”. Because when they don’t perform well, they get bounced. The same is true for the pages on your website. Did you know the average time a visitor spends on a web page is a little less than a minute? And that’s on a good day.
What’s worse is that they read only about a fourth of the text. Words are usually the main moneymakers on a website! So, unless your message is extraordinarily clear and focused, little of what you say on your website will get through to customers.
Here’s the good news
Researchers have discovered that 99% of website pages have a negative aging effect. In other words, the longer something has been in service, the less likely it is to fail.
It boils down to one thing: QUALITY.
Poorly made objects usually fail early. Anything that has been in service for a long time is likely to stay in service. Website visitors follow that same behavior. They either leave the website quick or stay long. The chart below illustrates the relationship between time visiting a website page and the probability of leaving.
Clearly, 10 seconds is a major threshold. If you can keep your visitor engaged for at least 10 seconds, they’re likely to stick around a while longer. The probability of leaving is also high between the first 10 to 20 seconds. So, if you can convince users to stay on your web page for 30 seconds, there’s a good chance they’ll stay much longer — often 2 minutes or more.
Why are visitors so restless?
Let’s face it, users are extremely skeptical of having suffered through countless poorly designed websites in the past. They know that most website’s pages are useless. They do all they can to avoid wasting even one more minute on another bad site.
Most people are on a mission to either buy something or find some information. Not to lollygag. Two minutes is an eternity on the web. The average time visitors spend on your website can tell you a lot about your site’s effectiveness.
How to keep your visitors engaged
It’s all about quality web design. Getting your visitor’s attention early on; engaging them with compelling content, and calling them to action. It’s paramount that you clearly communicate your value proposition… within 10 seconds.
“Your home page should present a solution that directly matches their immediate need.”
So how do you get their attention? Easy; show them what they’re looking for! Remember, they don’t care about your company, your logo, your products, or your product’s features. They only care about one thing, “How is what you offer going to solve my problem right now?” You don’t want visitors to have to figure it out. Your appeal should be immediately evident.
Unfortunately, most websites are incredibly bad at doing that. It requires a web design firm that has intimate knowledge of how people use the web, marketing know-how, even some neuromarketing (a fancy word for consumer psychology) as well as all the technical stuff, to make it work.
Are users coming to your website but leaving early? We say, Not For Long. Let us help you correct your site issues or design a site that will keep users happy and give them exactly what they are looking for.
