The 3 Second Effect: 5 Ways to Increase Client Engagement on Your Site

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.” Steve Jobs

If you build it, they will come…right?

Okay, so you’ve got your web site up and running- told your story, laid out your products, and  spiced it up with some visuals. Let’s say you’ve even gotten a decent number of visitors to the site…but according to your Google Analytics (see our previous post here) people are leaving your site too quickly to take much action. Why? Truthfully, there could be a number of different reasons specific to your site that you need to evaluate and we will get more in depth later this week on some of those. However, there are at least 5 things to you can check right now:

1. Clean, clean, clean – According to this article from Entrepreneur, you have about 3 seconds to visually capture your audiences first impression of your site. Ouch, that’s not a lot of time! One way to guarantee that people are leaving is to have a busy site with too many thing going on all at once. Clean doesn’t have to mean bare-bones, it simply means getting your design elements right: pixels, spacing, color, etc. Don’t overload people with clutter just to fill space and be sure to limit your pages to the minimum necessary.
2. Easy does it – Once a visitor lands on your site do they know what to do? Can they get to the information they need? Search bars, landing pages, and one simple call to action per page gives people confidence in navigating to exactly why they came to your site in the first place.
3. Click away – Make sure your site is interactive and gives people a reason to share. Got a great blog post? Perfect, be sure that you included social media buttons as a way for readers to tweet, pin, or like it on Facebook. People should also be able to email, contact or chat with a mere click from your site.
4. Spammers beware – Be sure that you aren’t luring people onto  your site under false pretenses. Google now watches for titles that don’t match with the content and are definitely up to speed with people trying to use SEO gimmicks. Want some more specific SEO examples to avoid? Check out this article here.
5. Content is king –  It is really still that simple: good content will drive engagement. Are you producing quality content that provides value to your visitors? Keep your content focused, organized and interesting for your target audience. Remember, you can use Google Analytics to help determine what content is the most effective.

One way to check these 5 things out is to poll other people. Ask for feedback and confirm that your client engagement is where you want it to be. Got these 5 basics covered? Check out our post later this week to dig in a bit deeper. Got another tip that we overlooked? Let me know Email Jenn