Recently one of my clients called expressing much frustration that visitors to her Website were not staying long enough. Business was going well and most of her customers came to her through her Website but still the average time on site was less than 3 minutes per visitor. What was she doing wrong? Why weren’t her visitors staying longer?
Rather than worry about how much time people are spending on your Website, here are two questions you should be answering:
1. Are you giving the people what they want in the time they have?
If you think 2 minutes is not “enough time”, get a stop-watch and sit quietly while the minutes tick away. I guarantee you’ll get up from your chair with a new definition of ‘forever’.
Ben Huh the CEO of Pet Holdings, Inc., the company behind the super-duper popular blog Icanhascheezeburger.com says his motto is “…to make people happy for 5 minutes a day.” Not 10 minutes, not 30 minutes – just 5 minutes a day! What do you want people to think about you in the 1 or 2 minutes they spend on your Website? Work at making your Website a place where people can click away feeling inspired (to return, to contact you, or to get information about what you have to offer).
2. Does your Website have an elevator speech?
Visitors to your Website’s homepage should know right away the type of business person you are, what type of business you are in and what your top two core competencies are–but this does not mean putting all your content on the homepage. For example, if you are running an e-commerce site, you’ll need to demonstrate your commitment to quality products and customer service by making it easy for visitors to contact you and get real-time help through a chat feature.
Get professional feedback
There are no exact industry averages for the time people should spend on your Website, but there are steps we can all take to improve our visitors’ experience in the time that they have. Talk to an IA (Information Architecture) or online marketing specialist to find out whether or not your site is set up for ease of use and fast access to the information your visitors might need – and as always, we are here to help.