Yet again I am drawing inspiration from an article about leading entrepreneurs and what they do to make the most of their websites. As an SEO company, this particular post has relevance to improving Google rankings too.
It makes sense, once potential customers are on your website, you want to keep them there for as long as possible. This will naturally increase the chance of making a sale. Smart web owners are using tools, calculators, checklists, maps, comparisons, live chats, and many more strategies to get people interacting with their website. This includes providing them with useful information.
My Net Phones founder, Andy Fung said his site is unique in his industry because of the touch and feel aspects. He says “It’s exciting, interesting and stimulating. Just like a retail store or an office, you feel comfortable and want to hang around and see more things”. Instead of customers just buying a phone and going away, they come back time and time again to top up their account, see the latest upgrades, enter competitions, and view their call history. They believe it is an important tool in their overall business because it communicates with their customers.
Sites like the green energy website Green Energy Watch, interact with the visitor and let them see how much carbon emission they can save, what this will achieve and who is the cheapest retailer to buy green energy from. They also run competitions to drive engagement. All of these things keep visitors on their page longer and encourage them to act.
Google likes to see this too. If you don’t know, Google tracks everything its users do. They know how many people click the back button from your site. They know how long the average person stays, which pages they view, where they leave from and more. The data they collect makes sense. They want to see if their users are finding what they are looking for. If they do great, promote the site. If they don’t, why would they show a website for that keyphrase. They don’t want search engine users to have a bad experience.
A good search engine optimisation strategy should include techniques to improve your visitors experience and the time they spend on your site. This is also known as UX Web Design. User Experience.
A better user experience, can translate into better rankings. Not just more sales per visitor.
The next post is about using design to stand out.