As more and more routine tasks become available online, consumer expectations on the responsiveness of these Web pages and applications have increased drastically. It all started with the 8-second rule. Back in , Zona Research released a study which stated that users will stick around for up to eight seconds waiting for a page to download.
Then, a November report by Aberdeen suggests that business performance begins to decrease after a response time delay of 5. I do agree that the user experience is more important than ever, AND that providing a good user experience is paramount to online success, AND that this number has decreased vastly, or rather, that user expectations for what represents an acceptable page response time has increased. This is especially true of today's broadband connected users. I strongly believe that this response time number, the one that represents where the user experience begins to be impacted negatively, is not quite so black and white.
For example, PPC landing pages, the home page, search results, and the product catalog really need to be snappy. Latency there may have a significant impact on the shopping experience. But there really is more to it. According to a survey conducted by Brafton , the average session duration was 2 minutes, 17 seconds, but that varied depending on whether the site was B2B, B2C or a hybrid.
It also depended on the industry. For instance, the survey found the average time spent on healthcare websites was over three minutes. Activity on your website is also dependant on your goals. Therefore, this post is about keeping those rates low and session duration high. Have you ever been to Nissan. Now, tell me: Was it what you were expecting? Most people expect to find the homepage of Nissan Motors the car company.
Instead, you were taken to a website about computers, right? So, if you were interested in purchasing a Nissan car, would you stick around to look at computer parts? The answer is almost definitely no, and I have web statistics from Alexa to back it up. According to Alexa, the average visitor hangs out at nissan. In this particular case, Nissan is a family name. Naturally, the owner wants to keep it, and he has a right to do so since he got there first. But from a business standpoint, the confusion generated by the domain name is likely doing him more harm than good.
The following graphics compare two massively popular websites, YouTube and Facebook, with intentionally misspelled domain names. Basically, users sometimes misspell the names of the websites they are looking for. At best, it is misleading. At worst, it can be downright dangerous—even illegal some sites have used misspelled domain names to gather login credentials from users intending to visit the real website.
Notice how long users stay on these bogus sites — about 30 seconds or less. So, why play those games? That is, you need to give your visitor a pleasant experience.
Social Triggers shared a fascinating study of what happens when potential buyers are given too many options. On two consecutive Saturdays, a free tasting booth was set up in an upscale supermarket. On the first Saturday, 24 flavors of jam were set out for customers to taste and buy. On the second Saturday, only six of those same jams were made available. One would think that more jam options would mean more sales, but the study found that the opposite was true. When 24 jams were available, 60 percent of the customers stopped for a taste test.
But, only 3 percent of the shoppers who stopped also bought some. When only six jams were available, fewer customers stopped. Only 40 percent tried the jams. It means that a poor design that gives too many options will significantly lower your sales and increase your bounce rate.
Even something simple like the layout can make a huge difference. A bad design has some other negative effects, as well. Neil Patel found that poor design leading to bad load times equals abandonment. That means that a poorly designed site with unoptimized load times will drive up your bounce rate.
Hubspot shared these guidelines for good web design:. They also immediately provide a link to their YouTube content with information on when you can expect new content. You see another call to action for their content, and then they give you the opportunity to get a sneak peek of their Good Mythical Morning show.
They also take the chance to tell you a little bit about their show. Every font has a personality and purpose. The right script will make your site easier to read and reduce bounce. Consider the example of the old but gold Kill Comic Sans campaign from a few years ago.
They give examples of doctors and government officials using a rather silly-looking font to convey an important message. So remember that the seemingly simple aspect of proper design has an immediate impact on your interest in a site.
Even if the data is still relevant, your audience craves newer content. If all you need to do is update a few statistics, find a new example, and provide some additional insight, then just do it. So, make sure your content conveys your expertise. Nothing is more intimidating or off-putting than having to wade through a wall of information, meaningless text to find what you came for.
These charts are meaningless. The key is that you communicate effectively. If you communicate well, your content is doing its job. And research from the Nielsen Norman Group back from the s confirms that most people never fully read web content anyway. In a way, formatting your content is the most important part, and anyone can do that effectively. One way you can change up the format is by making a nice visual. Neil Patel shared a few content mistakes you should avoid.
Here are some of my favorites:. Always remember that the effort you put in determines the results you get out. Bad content will turn visitors away just like bad design will.
And as I already mentioned with content, another element you should consider is how visual your site is. I do that for a reason.
Websites that relied on visual engagement in addition to copy saw their conversion rates more than double. It also reduces the risk of a hack or attack. Most importantly, you especially want to update your content frequently.
According to the Kissmetrics Science of Social Timing infographic, your chance of getting more unique views and backlinks increases as you increase the frequency that you share content. You could add a blog. You can interact with your own site by commenting on or updating old posts.
Try adding images and videos when appropriate. Update your design to stay trendy. Freshen up your other content like social media, FAQs, and testimonials. It could be a more traditional coupon or discount, or it could be a free trial, whitepaper, or gift. The best offers push your visitors further into your sales funnel. I always recommend offering a clear statement of value in addition to a way for people to contact you.
Like this example from Bills. They immediately give you what you came for. They simply start by giving you the tools you need to manage your bills and debt. While getting information from your visitors is helpful to you, it could turn away a user who is simply trying to browse or learn more. Finding the right offers and timing them appropriately goes a long way in meeting the expectations of your visitor.
Give users what they expect. Make sure that your domain name, website header, and every last drop of content is relevant to the focus of your website. So, keep it real. Let your site be what it is and advertise it as such. Users want websites that make a lasting impression,. People need to be able to use your website, not just experience it.
There are actually five different elements you can look for to establish and assess usability on a site that your visitors will enjoy. The first element of a good user design is access and availability.
It also means that elements like broken links or lack of mobile re sponsiveness are playing a part in how someone experiences your website. The screen is flexible and adjusts when you minimize or maximize the window. And this makes sense. You would expect a site like this from a social media platform that has exploded to a user base of more than 2 billion.
None of this has c ome by accident. Facebook has constantly been concerned with ease of access and constant availability as a part of its brand. But beyond accessibility and availability, you should also be able to provide a clear experience of your brand. You should be able to create a website that has a single focus. It should have a clear and unwavering design and purpose that your audience can jive with.
One way to achieve this is to keep things simple. Take Samsung as an example. Their site immediately focuses on the important aspects they want you to see. To take it a step further, they also try to make you feel like their site is familiar when you scroll down and see this:. The font is the same. The colors match. It provides a clear user experience that minimizes distractions and bounces.
Beyond clarity, the site also helps you learn about the product. This is largely due to the fact that it follows some pretty classic design patterns that many major websites and brands use. All of this is possible because this site is easy to learn.
Another powerful option is social proof — putting customer reviews right on your homepage. Take the Pebble smartwatch brand, for example. Before they sold their company to Fitbit, they had to compete against Apple in the emerging smartwatch market. But, by being proactive about displaying the versatility, battery life, and durability of their product, they were able to develop a loyal customer base and even break some Kickstarter records.
Convey that visitors can trust you, and customers will use your site as a reliable source of information. Again, Pebble is a great example, as they were a leading brand at a time when smartwatches were still a risky concept. By innovating and creating useful features like speech to text, always-on watch faces, and third-party apps, they were able to cater to the crowd of individuals disillusioned by the Apple Watch.
They listened to what their users wanted and poured all of their resources into creating an innovative and user-friendly product. Content will change as necessary, navigation will condense, and images and spacing will adjust, but the usability of the site is preserved. And with mobile conversion rates only lagging 0.
It will work exactly the same across all devices, and it will even accommodate for lacking elements like Flash on some tablets. Navigation will be simpler, images will appear smaller, and your static content will remain the same. But the key difference is that it will look good on a tablet or smartphone. The point is that transitioning to a responsive design will help build trust, increase usability, and lower bounce.
All of the other elements rely on a clean format, which you can achieve with a responsive or mobile site. If your website is a versatile, user-friendly platform, your visitors will want to stick around to see what you have to say.
Boost your usability by keeping runtime high, site design clear, and learnability to a maximum. As long as you stay clear and relevant, your bounce rate will be low and your brand trust will be high.
And remember to keep your site either responsive, mobile-friendly, or both. It sounds weird, right? We naturally want to give people all the information so they can make an informed decision.
But in reality, this hardly ever works. How do you think information should be organized? How can you reduce friction from start to finish? Trying to look at your site with fresh, unbiased eyes will help you streamline navigation and reduce the headache a new user might experience.
You can also help a visitor navigate your site by directing them with internal links in your content. According to Yoast, internal linking helps Google understand your site. And as you can see in their WordPress plugin, they provide a red flag for a lack of internal links:.
First of all, you need to source your material and have a good content strategy. You can expect that your competition has refined and optimized their CTAs. If you want to stack up to them, you have to include well-researched value propositions that appeal to your audience. Businesses with no CTAs are letting leads slip right through their fingers. Just imagine those bounce rates.
In addition to calls to action, internal linking, and proper navigation, you should also consider how easy it is to accomplish something on your site. This is another area where bad page design can hurt conversions if you let it. It makes it so that you can purchase something immediately.
If you want to provide easy navigation and lower your bounce rate, then make it easy for visitors to accomplish the tasks they came to do. The key here is perfecting your presentation. So why do you serve your products on a metaphorical paper plate? Consider this example :. This example uses a few powerful presentation aspects that you can start implementing in your own designs to help show visitors what they can do. The first element at play here is a cognitive bias known as the Anchoring Effect.
The next element you want to consider is how you can use presentation to gain trust and push your visitor a little further into the sales funnel. You can also look for other elements like trust badges, certifications, social media buttons, testimonials, and even clear and concise descriptions. This makes sense for a lot of reasons. One reason is that a crowded pricing package could simply cause confusion. This reassures your visitor and encourages them to take a longer look at your services.
Using elements like strikethrough pricing, temporary bundles, or even a countdown timer are good ways to put a little added pressure on a visitor. By using the strikethrough pricing, they give off the idea that these prices will be going up soon.
As a result, the loading time was increased by a mere half second. The result was dramatic, with traffic and revenue down about 20 percent. If Facebook, Google, and Bing have noticed that slow websites are losing visitors, surely anyone can understand that this has a massive impact on the conversion rates, sales, and revenues of large eCommerce websites. The following facts demonstrate the positive impact of fast load times on the user experience and conversion rate.
Back in Amazon discovered a connection between load time and turnover. Walmart, one of the top retail chains in the world, also realized that optimizing the load times in their online shop had a significant impact on their conversion rate. The same pattern is seen in a Tagman study, but with even more dramatic results. It is interesting to see that both Tagman and Walmart found the same patterns in their investigations. In , Google officially announced that load times would be a factor in its search ranking algorithm and reiterated it recently.
Google prefers websites with fast load times as it positively impacts the user experience and reduces operational costs. Another benefit of fast websites is that search engines can crawl them more effectively. Of course, this is an excellent advantage for large eCommerce sites with thousands of pages. Fast websites therefore potentially offer the opportunity to improve organic search rankings.
And besides organic search results, load time is a factor in determining the Google AdWords Quality Score. This can cost companies significant money.
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