keeping visitors around longer

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 logs

If 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:

  • What days and times do you get the most traffic?

  • What parts of your site are most popular?

  • What pages do users exit from?

  • When do you see traffic spikes and dips?

  • Where do users click?

  • What do users buy?

  • When do users register?

  • Do your users browse or search?

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 design

One 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:

  • Make choices intuitive. If users don't understand their choices or can't figure out how to get where they're going they're likely to give up before completing their tasks.

  • Don't bury site features. Site features often go undiscovered, because they're buried deep within the site or hidden behind unclear links. Make sure you let users see their options: Label site features clearly, and bring features up to the top level whenever you can. For example, if you have a search feature, don't bury it behind a link that says "Search." Integrate the search form directly into the front page or all the pages, for that matter. This encourages immediate action: The search form almost begs to be filled in.

  • Make navigation consistent. If users have to learn a new interface and navigation scheme every time they click, they'll soon tire of trying.

  • Thoroughly test site with users before launch. You should perform extensive user testing to insure you're providing intuitive choices.

    See usability testing, p. 129.

Dig Deeper

understanding user needs, p. 60.

organization sites, p. 98.

usability testing, p. 129.


3. add muti-page features

For 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:

  1. Your site gets credit for how long the reader stays on the site. Rather than lingering on a single page for 20 minutes, he clicks through several pages, while reading the article.

  2. Readers get a break from absorbing endless fields of text. By breaking articles down into more manageable chunks, you're offering readers a psychological break between sections.

  3. Editors see what works, or at least what people read. By breaking up the article, writers and editors can see just how far readers get into each article. (A 50% drop-off between pages is typical.)

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:

  • Offer a single-page option for readers, which they can use to read or more importantly, print the article in its entirety.

  • Provide a list of article pages with sub-headings for each so users can skip around.

  • Don't overdo it by creating 1,000 super-short, linked pages.

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.

  • News sites can offer articles on related topics or other articles by the same journalist.

  • Retail sites can offer complementary products, matched by category (ski goggles offered with the parkas, or female vocalists displayed with each purchase of a Sheryl Crow CD), or more sophisticated matches. Amazon, for instance, displays products that were purchased by other people who bought your book.

  • Any site can offer clusters of related links and products when a user completes a given task.

5. let them search

There 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 speed

Simple 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.



The Unusually Useful Web Book
The Unusually Useful Web Book
ISBN: 0735712069
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 195
Authors: June Cohen

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