In web design, stickiness refers to anything about a website which increases the amount of time a visitor spends browsing. There are many elements that may increase stickiness which may not be the original reason for the website visit. For example, a visitor may come to your website to look at product dimensions, but then visit your specials page and watch a couple of testimonial videos. The value of stickiness, attracting and keeping user attention, gives you greater opportunity to enhance the brand experience and interest in your products or services.
Here are 5 ways to increase website stickiness:
One of the most important aspects of web design is user experience. Organizations use various methods from content marketing to search engine optimization and search engine marketing simply to drive visitors to their website. Once you’ve got a visitor to your website it’s critical that they are able to find the information they are looking for in the most efficient way possible. Providing intuitive navigation on a website means finding the balance between too many choices and not enough, as well as using a clean and consistent design. Allowing website visitors to easily navigate your website is an excellent way to increase stickiness, while failing to do so ensures that frustrated visitors will leave your company’s website in a hurry.
Do you ever consider why your bounce rate may be high? Likely, it’s due to the failure of providing website visitors with valuable content. Deciding what may be valuable to your target audience is entirely subjective. Be it information about your products or services, intriguing case studies or useful tips, you must make sure your content engages visitors and encourages them to foster a relationship with your organization. If this is a new thought for you, it may require that you reconsider your content marketing approach. Alternatively, it may only require subtle tweaks in messaging or the type of content you create.
Simply put, provide valuable content and visitors will spend more time on your website.
After the initial visit to your website, you must give visitors a reason to come back on a regular basis. Publishing a website, even a great one, is only the first step. Consistently creating new content and adding it to your website not only increases stickiness, it also bolsters your search engine optimization. In this respect, it’s nice that we get to kill two birds with one stone as both audiences are served by a similar strategy.
Another way to increase stickiness is to immediately engage website visitors. The truth of the matter is that upon entry you only have a few seconds to engage your website visitors. Is the information about your organization, products and services presented in an interesting way? Have you produced targeted, relevant content and are you disseminating it in a clear and concise manner? Considering how to best present each piece of content requires deep knowledge of your target audience and the design and development expertise to know which medium best serves each piece of content. Are you visitors most likely to respond to a downloadable tip sheet or a short video? Is a social campaign the right approach for a particular initiative? If so, should you use Facebook? Twitter? Both?
There are many way to engage website visitors and identifying the best ones for your particular application is critical to your long-term success.
Less is often more. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of clean web design. Remember that website visitors are always one click away from leaving your website. Give them a reason. like a cluttered design, and they are sure to take you up on it and visit one of your competitors’ websites for a better experience. Organize your content and make it simple for visitors to find the information they are looking for. Prioritize the information you are presenting knowing that not everything can be “the most important thing.” Trim the fat a little and get rid of content that may not be necessary.
Now create a design that is uncluttered and presents the your information in an aesthetically pleasing fashion and communicates your brand messaging. You will be providing your website visitors with an improved user experience which naturally leads to increased stickiness.
A website is said to become more sticky if it has the ability to keep viewers for a longer period of time than previously. Implementing simple navigation; providing valuable and up-to-date content; engaging your visitors; and reducing website clutter are just a few of the approaches you can implement when trying to increase the stickinesss of your website. Holding your website visitors’ attention for longer means you have more time to engage them and ultimately make a conversion.
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