Are you having problems with your site’s bounce rate? If you can’t find the culprit that’s causing this, then I suggest that you take a look at your web design.
No matter where you look at it, a poorly designed website is one of the main reasons why people won’t stick around your site (aside from having too many advertisements). It just goes without saying that if you want your visitors to stay with you and like you, you have to make yourself “likable”.
How do you do that? How about spicing up your website!
If you’re new to the whole thing then here are 5 tips to help you spice up your site:
1. Make sure that they like your content.
If you want your content to be enticing, you need to make sure that they like your topic.
I guess you’re now asking yourself just how exactly will you determine which topic they like, right? A good answer to that is the forums. Yes, that’s it! The forums.
You need to go to the forums and check out which threads have the most comments or replies. Basically, you need to look for the “Hot threads”. Once you find out which topics are hot, you either write about it, make videos, infographics, etc.
Threads with a lot of comments and replies on it is a social stamp of approval that people like that topic or it’s something that they feel strongly about.
Important note: Make your title intriguing! Otherwise, your content will be for naught.
2. Beef it up with aesthetics.
Your aesthetics play a crucial role in how your customers will view your brand. Your site’s color combination, layout, even as simple as the font and size of the texts will matter in the end.
Never underestimate the value of the aesthetics on your site because it will determine your site’s feel the moment your visitors see it.
If you believe in first impressions last (and I really hope you do), then knowing that your site’s aesthetics are your first impression will put things in perspective in terms of how you value it.
If your budget permits, hire a credible user interface (UI) design agency that can help you enhance your website’s user interface.
3. Pop-ups inside your web design with contests.
Using pop-ups is like using a double-edged sword. It can either make or break your chances of building a relationship with your visitors.
Instead of using pop-ups with opt-in forms, why not use your pop-ups for contests or anything that’s ALL ABOUT the visitors?
When I say all about the visitors I’m talking about photo contests, writing contests,
There are a lot of events that you can run to spike up their interest.
Conversely, using pop-ups for advertisements or opt-in forms might also be very distasteful for some customers, so be very careful with how you use the pop-ups.
4. Your web design will need to treat your visitors with promos, freebies, and weekend specials.
Be generous with the promos, discounts, and freebies on your site. The more you give away, the more people will appreciate what you’re doing.
Just make sure that you don’t come off as spam to your visitors.
How do you do that? For starters, make sure that your ads or coupons are in a place where it doesn’t block the customers from viewing your content. If your customers are watching a video and you’ll have a time-delayed pop-up that talks about how amazing your product is, trust me it’ll blow your customers away!
Remember that visitors normally go to your site for content and not for promos. If you annoy them with pop-ups in the wrong places and time, you can bet your family jewels that your customers will end-up grumbling.
5. Create a weekly featured blog for free.
This is a very powerful technique because they know that once they’re featured, they get tons of exposure! You need these feature inside your web design.
When they are featured more opportunities open up for them and the fact that it’s free makes it a cherry on top of the icing.
A good way to do this is to build specific rules that would merit a person or blog to be chosen as the featured site for the week. An example of this is if someone made x amount of guest post on your site, their blog becomes the featured blog for the week.
Doing this encourages people to send you quality guest posts as much as they can. This benefits you a lot because you won’t have to keep creating content, you’re able to build a strong relationship with your community, and your community becomes more active.
There are surely other ways to spice up your web design and the ones I’ve shared above barely scratched the surface. Before we end this article, I urge you to share your ideas. What are the things that you did to spice-up your site? What do you think is making your website “sticky” to your visitors? Let’s all start sharing and start creating a community that’s deeply rooted in teamwork and genuine concern for others success.
These tips will surely spice-up your site. Try implementing these tips and be amazed by how much the bounce rate of your site will decrease.
Question: What is your experience to improve your web design and increase relationships with your customers?