Write with the Audience in Mind
We’ve seen way too many webmasters making a big mistake of brand-focused content creation. While it may seem like a natural thing to do, the truth is that the average website visitor demands a customer-centric approach.
Instead of dwelling on your business and its benefits, you should focus on the needs and interests of your target audience. Make sure to learn about their habits, experiences, desires, and all other details relevant to the typical consumer. With those details at your disposal, it shouldn’t be hard to create a piece of content that really matters to your audience.
Write Attractive Headlines
In case you didn’t know, 80% of readers never make it past the headline. The vast majority of users simply don’t think that the content is valuable enough, so they move on and search for more interesting posts.
This is exactly why you have to write attractive headlines and convince potential customers to keep reading your articles. It is always a good idea to use humor or numbers in titles, but you can also test CoSchedule Headline Analyzer if you want a digital platform to assess your options objectively.
Write Long-Form Posts
The third tip on our list is fairly obvious – write longer posts to increase the time spent on your pages. According to the report, the average Google first page result contains 1,890 words, mostly due to the fact that modern consumers enjoy reading highly informative articles. Keep in mind that quantity is nothing without quality, so do your best to combine the two features and make the most of each word.
Improve Content Readability
Another useful suggestion is to take care of content readability and improve the structure of each post individually. What does it mean? We can give you a few practical hints:
- Distinguish between the introduction, body part, and conclusion
- Write short paragraphs and use whitespace to divide smaller segments of your post
- Use lists, numbers, and bulletins to ensure easy skimming
- Bold and highlight the most relevant keywords
All these elements will help you to design a well-structured article and avoid big bulks of intricate text that chases the readers away.
Use More Than Just Text
The year is 2020 and users want more than just simple textual content. Almost every content management system enables you to add different features to the blog post or landing page, so why wouldn’t you use it to make the content more appealing?
Jake Gardner, an assignment provider at the Essay Bot agency, says multimedia files make the webpage more colorful and entertaining: “You should enrich posts by adding multimedia components such as images, animations, GIFs, videos, and quotes. There are also elements like infographics, charts, audio podcasts, tables, and so on.”
Add Internal Links
This tactic somehow gets neglected among website administrators, but the fact remains that internal linking is a surefire way to keep potential customers on your website longer. After all, it’s a simple trick that requires little to no work whatsoever.
Namely, all you need to do is to install a tool that automates the whole process based on targeted keywords. If WordPress powers your website, then you can choose from a wide range of user-friendly and intuitive plugins to regulate the internal linking issue.
Always Add a CTA
A clever webmaster will never forget to add a clear call to action (CTA) to each page. Think about it this way – when visitors read the content on one page, what would you like them to do:
- Leave your website?
- Follow your instructions and check out another piece of content?
The answer is obvious, so you should always think about the next move and give your audience a clear sign of what to do next. A well-placed CTA will take them deeper into the website and drastically increase the time spent on your web pages.
Analyze the Existing Content
The last tip on our list is to analyze the existing pages and learn how to improve your content creation strategy. One goal is to identify malfunctioning pages – higher bounce rates will show you that the average visitor doesn’t like that kind of content.
The second goal is to pinpoint well-performing pages where users spend most of their time. Identifying such posts, you can learn which topics work well for your audience and create more of the same content in the future.
Conclusion
Attracting potential customers to your website and inspiring them to keep consuming your content is far from being a simple process, but you can make it more successful using state of the art optimization tactics. In this article, we analyzed eight practical ways to keep potential customers on your website longer.
Have you already tested any of these tools, tricks, and tactics? Which one do you believe to be the most important retention-wise? Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences in comments as we would be glad to discuss this interesting topic with you.
