If your home page has a 2-minute video that visitors watch on the first visit, you’re reaching for the gold ring of keeping them on your site. Typically, a first-time visitor will give you three seconds, maybe five, or eight seconds if they’ve got time to kill.
Yet the investment of time they’d spend to stay on your site and watch your welcome message is partly why video has become an increasingly popular type of content. Certainly, there’s the idea that many people prefer video content to your text-based description of services. But another perk is that when people watch the video, you’re keeping them engaged and on your site for a longer duration. And that’s a good thing.
Your website must hold someone’s attention long enough for them to learn how you can solve their problems – if you’ve got even half a shot at converting them to a customer.
Keeping people on your site longer not only helps you lead them toward conversion, but it also helps draw more visitors to your site. Search engines prefer websites that keep people engaged, and that metric figures into how they favor you when displaying search results. On the other hand, search engines (and marketers) don’t like high bounce rates that show visitors dropped by, scanned one page of content and quickly left.
So, how do you keep your audience interested in your content?
First, be clear about what you do. When a prospect is in search mode and hits your link, you need to make it easy for them to figure out what you do, how your service/estimate process works and how they can get in touch. Confusion doesn’t sell contracting services, but it does cause a prospect to click away from your website – and end your chance for a sale.
Sum up who you are in a value proposition that is clear, compelling and encourages them to stick around and learn more. Make your navigation easy to follow as they seek to dig deeper. Also, it’s a good idea to include internal links within your content that will take visitors to additional pages on your site. The more pages they visit, the better that is for your engagement metrics as well as their potential purchase.
Most visitors scan and scroll; few readers go through your copy word by word. So, make sure the heads and subheads give highlights that support your value proposition. Plus, keep the body copy short. Use bullet points to give a visual break and italicize or bold key phrases to pique interest.
The call to actions should also be clear on what step you want customers to take next. Again, avoid confusion. Just tell your prospects how to get the great deal you’re offering or what risk-free step they need to take next.
Continue to add quality content to your site on a regular basis, including video, text and images. In fact, an image gallery of attractive home improvements could keep visitors clicking through for a while. You may also consider including a FAQ page to answer common questions and give tips. Include a search field too to help visitors find details for the research they’re pursuing.
You can get a picture of how well your site is doing with engagement with the help of Webmaster tools such as Google Analytics. Look for average time on site numbers and bounce rate stats to gauge how effective your site is supporting your marketing efforts. Also avoid irritations like slow load times; visitors don’t have the patience for staring at blank screens.