matte
30 May 2006, 09:46 PM
It is an interesting excercise that any webmaster should undertake at least a few times per year. By doing so will show up and interesting result and put the whole business of the website into perspective.
That exercise is to look at your weblog and see how long people stay on your website. Lets face it - people are in a hurry, and unless they see what they want or at least have confirmation that they are on a site that they will be able to find the information they are after, then they will be hitting the back button on their browser faster than than you can say ‘Wait a minute!”
The need to make sure you tell people fast that they are at the right place is further exacerbated by the often poor results being returned by Google. Yes, there is trouble in Paradise and Google is trying to improve the situation since Big Daddy, which is when things started to go belly-up. Poor results means people are having to appraise a site quickly before moving onto the next search result.
What this means is people are being even faster in their initial assessment of if the site they have landed on is right for them. They are becoming skilled in capturing the information before they have to blink again. That is kow long you have to engage with them - less than a blink space.
So what can be done to keep people on your site?
Here are some suggestions to help keep people on your site long enough for them to be drawn into your site and hopefully end up on your order page or contact page.
1. Simple statement at the beginning.
2. Ensure that the banner and graphics are within the genre of your site.
3. Avoid long blocks of text on the page.
4. Reduce wordage.
5. Be objective.
6. Have clear navigation that is pertinent to the user.
7. Draw the eye.
Expanded content on the 7 points can be found here found here (http://www.plusone.com.au/diary/archives/145)
That exercise is to look at your weblog and see how long people stay on your website. Lets face it - people are in a hurry, and unless they see what they want or at least have confirmation that they are on a site that they will be able to find the information they are after, then they will be hitting the back button on their browser faster than than you can say ‘Wait a minute!”
The need to make sure you tell people fast that they are at the right place is further exacerbated by the often poor results being returned by Google. Yes, there is trouble in Paradise and Google is trying to improve the situation since Big Daddy, which is when things started to go belly-up. Poor results means people are having to appraise a site quickly before moving onto the next search result.
What this means is people are being even faster in their initial assessment of if the site they have landed on is right for them. They are becoming skilled in capturing the information before they have to blink again. That is kow long you have to engage with them - less than a blink space.
So what can be done to keep people on your site?
Here are some suggestions to help keep people on your site long enough for them to be drawn into your site and hopefully end up on your order page or contact page.
1. Simple statement at the beginning.
2. Ensure that the banner and graphics are within the genre of your site.
3. Avoid long blocks of text on the page.
4. Reduce wordage.
5. Be objective.
6. Have clear navigation that is pertinent to the user.
7. Draw the eye.
Expanded content on the 7 points can be found here found here (http://www.plusone.com.au/diary/archives/145)