Another way to increase traffic is to encourage your guests to stay longer. By increasing the length of each visit or making your site more "sticky" you can maximize your return from each visitor (while simultaneously maximizing what they get from you). On its surface, a long visit has excellent implications: The longer visitors stay with your site, the more they learn about you, the more ads they view, and the more likely they are to make a purchase. Cha-ching! But beware: A long visit isn't necessarily a good visit. If users linger on your site because they're lost or because they can't find the darn thing they were looking for...well...a long, frustrating visit doesn't do anyone any good. 1. pay attention to traffic logsIf you want to learn what makes your users stick around, all you have to do is pay attention. By watching your traffic logs, you can learn almost everything you want to know about how visitors use your site: where they come from, where they click, where they linger, and when they leave. What to watch for:
Test what works. By running experiments and watching the results you can figure out what exactly keeps your users around, and what turns them away. 2. improve site designOne simple way to keep visitors around longer is to make sure they're aware of everything your site has to offer and can find what they want. To improve site design:
Dig Deeper understanding user needs, p. 60. organization sites, p. 98. usability testing, p. 129. 3. add muti-page featuresFor content sites, which earn money based on the number of pages and therefore ads their readers view, it's helpful to break long articles or exhibits into multiple pages. The benefits of multi-page articles:
The downside of multi-page articles is that they're exceptionally annoying when poorly implemented. To avoid irritating and losing your users, follow these tips:
4. offer "more"From time to time, web developers have to think like store owners. This is one of those times. You learn in Retail 101 that any time you have a customer interested in an item, you should offer them something related: "Want fries with that, sir?" "Matching socks for that sweater?" It's known as "filling the basket." Now the leap from The Gap to gap.com isn't too great. Retail sites, like retail stores, can obviously benefit from offering customers "more." But the concept applies just as easily to content and service sites.
5. let them searchThere are two types of web users: browsers and searchers. Browsers will navigate through your site sections and hierarchy, absorbing their choices and trying to navigate their way to what they want. Searchers, on the other hand, will simply enter what they want into the Search box and skip (hopefully) to the page they need. To accommodate searchers as well as browsers, make sure your site search is integrated into every page, and that it works returning useful, relevant results for at least the most common queries. 6. improve site speedSimple fact: Pages that load quickly and consistently are more likely to be seen than those that sputter and choke. Web users are an impatient lot. Generally speaking, they know what they want and they want it fast. To keep your visitors coming back, and to keep them longer while they're there you'll need to speed things along. See improving site speed, p. 218. |