Effective Branding Is a Smart Strategy to Improve Your Website's Search Metrics Making your website appealing to your audience is pretty much the same as making it more appealing to Google.
By Lesya Liu •
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Once you have mastered getting traffic to your website you must learn how to engage those people to keep them on the site longer, improving your time on site and bounce rates.
This is important not only to engage and convert an audience, but these statistics also make your website search engine-lovable.
1. Make your website load faster.
This is one of the most crucial web metrics these days. Google takes into consideration the speed of your website when ranking search results, so if it takes too long to load, your website won't be shown as high in search results as it would have otherwise.
Visitors will bounce if the site takes forever to load. They won't wait around to find out if you have the best, most useful information your website. It's annoying to watch a video that buffers all the time or images that take so long to load, they keep messing up the whole page layout.
If you're not a techy person, you can still do a few things that can prove very powerful without the knowledge of a single line of code. Make sure your site has only what it needs and not more.
Here is what I mean: large media files take too long to download. So, if an image will be displayed at 300 by 300 pixels, upload a file with that size. If you upload an image that is 3000 pixels wide, browsers will take a while to downsize an image to the needed size through code. Simplify browsers' tasks by omitting the need for additional code. If you do want large images (they are all the hype these days), then you will need a good image optimizing and caching plugins.
So, take a good look at what you have on your site and keep only those plugins that are truly needed, deleting everything else to increase the performance of your site.
Related: Want to Speed Up Your Website? Try These 5 Cloud Server Applications.
2. Simplify your website.
How many times have you tried to find something on a website but couldn't because of the overly complicated menu and overall clutter? A simple website make things easier, and thus less stressful, making for an overall pleasurable experience. People are bombarded with information, graphics, visuals and text all day long. Simplify the job for the mind and the eyes.
Step into the shoes of your customer. Create a clear path for them to follow: where they will land, what they will see first, and where they'd need to go from there.
Make your menu short and to the point. However, be cautious not to take away too much and strip the site off of its usability. However, any SEO-purpose pages or pages that don't have a true value to a customer can be taken away.
Related: 3 Simple Ways to Increase Conversions on Your Website
3. Tell a story.
Your whole website should add up into one cohesive story of your company. Tell stories and share photos. Consistently present yourself to the world. Let website visitors know what your values are and what you stand for.
Consistency is key to gaining customer trust. Avoid brand confusion and your company will stay strong and tall above other companies.
Related: These Founders Aren't Selling Furniture, They're Telling a Story
4. State your offer clearly.
It's tempting to position yourself as an "expert in everything," but chances are you're not. Your product is most likely not going to solve all of the problems.
This is also very important to your site. Remember, your company's website is your first and last chance to impress website visitors. From the first second on your site, they need to be clear on what you're offering and how it's going to help them. Drive that focus and usefulness home before taking on any more topics.
Once you have their attention, you can go into details on what exactly your company is about. First, they should feel like this is specifically for them and exactly what they've been looking for. Then, they will read your pitch. Your website sells the experience first, then the product.
If you want to improve engagement on your website, think like a customer. What information would you find useful? What's unnecessary? Think of what makes a pleasant user experience and what doesn't play any role in it.
