Drop Something on the Ground and You Get 10 Seconds to Eat it - Drop Someone Into Your Website and You Get Less Than 5!
Oh boy, what a week this has been!!!! I started off with getting the flu shortly after my son had a whole cocktail of viruses to fight off ... now I am slowly getting over my yuckies and my daughter comes down with croup!! So far my husband is still hanging on ... but barely. This morning as I was pouring our coffee so we can 'adult' today my son comes in to grab his pumpkin bread and drops it on the floor ... "oh man!!" he says and my brain (on autopilot) tells my mouth to say "don't worry, 10 second rule!!" ... and off he goes to eat his 'floor covered' bread.
What is that rule all about anyway?? If I drop my food in a disgusting place I can count to 10 and it's still cool to put that sh*t in my body??? I digress ... but it got me thinking about seconds and the LESS THAN 5 SECOND RULE for website visitors! Thus: a blog post for The Editor's Touch is born!
It used to be that when people entered your company website they typically came in through the front door: your homepage ... they would see your .com listed in an ad in the newspaper or in a magazine and they'd physically type it into their browser. Those days are DONE-ZO. Now, with things like Pinterest, Twitter, and Google a visitor can pop in from anywhere to any page on your site and that 'click in' may be their first impression of your company! Terrifying!!
Is your website up to snuff?? Do you have a gorgeous homepage because you know that is where visitors will spend most of their time and then your other pages are 'just ok'? Is your blog a jungle is mismatched sized images and flashing GIFs that doesn't match the rest of your brand? Does your contact us page have a bunch of weird 'spam' filter boxes on it?? What happens if the first thing your visitor sees are one of your 'less than par' pages?? Will they stick around??
Here are a few things that your website needs to keep people who bounce into those 'other pages' around:
A clearly defined navigation bar that will give obvious and 'necessary' choices for your visitor to click on.
A beautiful homepage that is well branded and clean.
Image selection on each and every page of your website that is top notch for the main landing pages of your website: such as the contact page, about, portfolio landing, etc.
Is there more?? Yes ;)
Do a little bit of clicking around your website today! Notice the pages that are 'not appealing' and note WHY they are 'not so great' ... or look at your analytics and see what pages are being looked at the most! This is a HUGE tell ... and then of course: what is your website bounce rate? Here is an example of my most popular pages for the last month on The Editor's Touch:
Point made!!! My homepage is only 10.9% of my page views for the month!! So if my blog was hideous I would be in big time trouble! Take a look at yours and see where your traffic is going and bouncing from and then fix it if it's telling you that you're in trouble.
XO~ Heather