This is a guest post by Virginie from CityGirl’s Design
Getting traffic to your site is hard enough as it is, the last thing you want is visitors to turn around as soon as they land on your website because the experience is not what they expected.
Whether you blog a lot, have an online store or offer your services, you need traffic to make money. The more eyes on your products or services, the more people end up buying from you.
Ready to make some upgrades to keep people on your website?
1. Have a cohesive and consistent branding
Your visitors are coming from somewhere. Whether it’s from a Facebook post, a tweet or an ad, you want them to feel the same way they did when they decided to click on your link. What I mean is if your ad was promising a super colorful branding and a fun user-experience, but they land on your website and it looks like a black and white mess, you’ve just lost them.
Make sure you use the same logo everywhere, that your colors and fonts are consistent and that your voice is the same everywhere.
A bad way to start your relationship with a potential client is to disappoint them. Don’t over promise on social media to under deliver on your website.
2. Use easy-for-the-eyes fonts
If clients get a headache looking at your website and trying to read blog posts or descriptions, they won’t stay long.
You don’t have to use Arial either to make your website easy to read. There are plenty of Google Fonts that are great looking and easy to read. I have a personal preference for Open Sans and Source Sans Pro when it comes to body text.
You can check out all the Google Fonts here. My tip for picking the right fonts is to keep it simple. Find one that’s extremely easy to read for the body of the text. Pick a serif font if you want to look fancier and more distinguished. Otherwise, stick to sans-serif!
Headers are where it gets a bit more complicated for most people… I get that script fonts are really cool and pretty, but they’re honestly a pain to understand. If you want to use one, make sure you ask someone for their opinion first. Ask a friend or a family member to read the text, or post it online and ask for opinions there. If everybody sees the same thing, great! You’ve found a magical script font: keep it. But if a handful of people get confused already, switch to something else. On a much larger scale, you risk losing a lot of customers.
3. Break down your content into easy to read paragraphs
Nobody wants to read a big blob of endless text. In this day and age, we consume content by scanning it quickly and stopping on a sentence or two that are interesting. Which means it’s much easier to catch someone’s attention when you have a lot of titles, bold sentences and space in between your paragraphs.
It’s also really great if you can add pictures that compliment your content, as we are visual creatures. It also helps break the monotony of an “all text” page.
4. Use your sidebar in a smart way
Make sure you fill your sidebar with related content instead of boxes that link to different social media sites. If you want your visitors to actually stay on your website, you need to keep them there instead of sending them elsewhere. Social media sites are great to attract visitors, but they’re not the platform you want to use to keep in touch with them.
So add your blog categories to your sidebar, related products, introduce your free offers, etc. A “Like” on Facebook will never be as valuable as a mailing list subscription or a customer coming back to your website.
5. Add related posts or products to your website
If someone lands on your website because they’re interested in a blog post about vegan recipes, why not show them more? Make sure your website shows relevant related posts at the end of your blog posts and it’ll keep your visitors reading.
Same thing goes for product based business. If someone is interested in a certain type of product, show them more like it so they can find exactly what matches their need! This way, you have a higher chance they’ll find what they need on your website and they actually buy.
More money in your pocket is totally worth the 5 minutes it’s going to take you to set that up!
If keeping visitors on your website isn’t one of your current goals, you should give it a try! It’s a great way to increase your tribe, your expertise, and your income! And really, who wouldn’t want that?
Virginie is the founder of CityGirl’s Design, a web design company that helps thriving entrepreneurs grow their business by providing them with a website that converts hesitant clients and attracts new ones. If she’s not behind her computer, you can find her hanging out on the beach, either reading a good book or transforming into a mermaid!
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