You need to keep customers on your page for as long as possible – fact.
Why is this?
It’s simple.
Google uses the amount of time people spend on your page to rank whether your website is relevant when it comes to their search engine results – so it’s important to keep bounce rates low.
And on top of this, the longer people stay on your page, the more likely you are to attract their custom.
With this in mind, it’s clear that the need to keep your people on your website and/or blog for as long as possible has perhaps never been more important.
But how do you do this?
Well, that’s the tricky bit.
Yet with a few key tweaks to your content, you’re sure to vastly improve the amount of time spent on your page.
So take a look below for our top advice on how to keep customers on your page for as long as possible.
Layout
Take a look at the introduction up there.
See how it’s all chopped up? How the content is in short, snappy sentences that aren’t overwhelming? It’s pretty easy to digest really, isn’t it?
Well that’s precisely what you need to do to keep people on your page too.
No one wants to be faced with huge chunks of text – the modern world is fast, we have our fingers on the pulse and there’s simply no time to waste combing through paragraphs that run on line after line after line.
So our first recommendation would be to break up your content (which also just so happens to be useful for people who are viewing your content on a mobile device too).
You don’t want to overwhelm your readers before they’ve even started to read.
Suspense
Our next point is going to focus on the actual content you put out there.
Take a look at this piece here from The Huffington Post, ‘Top Nine Tips to Help You Survive an Indoor Cycling Class’ by Petra Kravos.
You’ll find straight away that there’s hook after hook to keep you on the page.
The first sentence ‘Are you a gym bunny but you’ve never tried an indoor cycling class before?’ is a question that encourages readers to directly interact with the content. And Kravos continues to consult them with phrases such as ‘It looks hard doesn’t it?’ throughout the introduction.
By directly addressing the reader, this piece of content is drawing them into the heart of the discussion, and it ultimately comes across as a conversational piece that’s relatable to because of this.
The promise of help: ‘Just follow my advice and you will survive,’ offers a solution to handling your first cycle class experience – which is exactly what most of the readers of this blog will be after in the first place.
It’s content filled with hooks like this that will keep people on your page. So remember; hook the reader in with an array of questions, as well as useful and engaging answers.
Photos
Another way to keep people on your page is by making sure your content looks attractive.
It’s not just enough to have engaging words.
In fact, Forbes online recently discussed an infographic that demonstrated just how important images are to your content efforts, stating that blogs with images received 94% more views than those without.
It’s therefore important to draw viewers in with images, because there’s just no point in trying to keep people on your page if you can’t get them there in the first place.
Yet once they are on your page, images will work for you once more to help keep customers interested. Hubspot recently reported that 40% of people will respond better to visual information than plain text, and if your readers are responding to your content, they will be on your page longer.
Videos
Videos are also key to keeping readers on your page. In the same hubspot article, it was reported that viewers spent 100% more time on pages with videos on them, as reported by MarketingSherpa.
With statistics like this, including videos with your content is perhaps a no brainer – especially if you want to keep people on your page as long as possible whilst still being engaging and informative.
The Guardian also reported last year that 64% of marketers expect video to dominate their strategies the near future, and claims that videos are naturally engaging – which will only serve to improve the rate at which people stay on your page.
So if you want to engage more for longer, then we highly suggest that you imbed informative and relevant videos to give your pages that extra winning edge.
Relevant Links
Providing links on your blog will also help to keep readers on your page for longer.
To get the most out of this tactic, we highly recommend using internal linking to keep people reading content that’s on your website.
By providing them links to other posts you’ve written that they may enjoy, you have a greater chance of keeping them on your website.
And the longer that they’re on your page, the better!
Encourage comments
Another key way to engage the people visiting your page is by encouraging them join the discussion.
If they are particularly moved by your content, or have something to add, directing them to your social media pages to continue talking about the piece will help promote your content.
This will also encourage more traffic to your page – more importantly, traffic that are interested in what you’re talking about. And the more interested traffic you have, the more chance you have of people staying on your page.
It will also give you a way to directly interact with prospects, and customer engagement is key to improving your content marketing campaign.
Two birds with one stone, we think.
Keeping customers on your page for longer
It’s one of the most important things you can do in your content marketing campaign – and keeping people on your webpage for longer will make a huge difference when it comes to how well you rank on Google.
But applying all of these points to your pages will also help your content to perform better – which in turn will build your company’s brand awareness.
It will also allow you to portray yourself as a thought leader in the industry, and a business that’s there to help their customers, both in the present and in the future.
If you’d like some more assistance with keeping people on your page for longer or reducing your bounce rate, then get in touch with Neil Walker Digital Group today.
We’re content marketing specialists, and our helpful staff are available to contact on 07816897301. Alternatively you can follow us on Twitter @theukseo, or send us an email at [email protected]