Want to improve your website in just 5 minutes? Here are seven tips you can apply today to reduce your bounce rates and keep your prospects on your website longer.
#1 Keep your section headings and subheadings short
Make sure that your section headings and subheadings are no longer than two lines on a desktop device. This will make your page more scannable and help your prospects find what they’re looking for easier and faster, which will motivate them to stay on your page longer.
#2 Do not center more than three lines of text
With centered text, our brains need more effort to identify where a line starts repeatedly. It increases cognitive load and makes your text harder to process and understand.
I’ll demonstrate. Try reading this paragraph:
Centered text is harder to read, because every line starts at a different point, and your visitors’ brain needs a moment to find out where the next line begins. It’s fine if the text is short, and they have to do it once or twice. But when your centered text is longer than three lines, your visitors start feeling uncomfortable.
Now compare it with this one:
In comparison, this text is much easier to read, because your brain has less work to do. It doesn’t need to look for the beginning of a new line over and over again and can focus on the content itself.
Did you notice how much easier it is to read the second paragraph?
So, stop torturing your prospects with centered text. Use left alignment to help them process and understand your text easier.
#3 Use action-focused copy for your call-to-action buttons
If your call-to-action button says “Click here,” just “eBook,” or has some other cryptic text that doesn’t make it clear what’s going to happen when a prospect clicks the button, they are less likely to click.
Make sure the copy of your call-to-action buttons completes the sentence “I want to.”
For example, “I want to download my eBook,” or “I want to view all services,” or “I want to request a custom quote.”
This way, it’s crystal clear what happens when a prospect clicks the button, and they will be more likely to click on it, increasing your click-through rates and ensuring that a prospect sees more of your website.
#4 Remove useless images
Remove any images from your website that do not have a clear purpose because they increase the length of your page without making your message stronger.
The longer your page is, the fewer visitors are going to read all of it. So, only use images that:
- either make your message stronger,
- explain something faster than you could with words, or
- create a certain emotion that helps you connect with your prospects.
This way, you will keep your pages as succinct as possible without compromising on messaging, making sure that more visitors will read more of your page.
#5 Avoid using more than two one-line paragraphs in a row
You may think one-liners make your text easier to read, but if you use many one-liners in a row, it creates visual monotony—your arch-nemesis when it comes to keeping your prospect’s attention.
More of the same thing becomes visually monotonous, so vary your paragraph length to keep your visitors’ attention and ensure they read more of your content.
#6 Keep the text line width narrow
What I often see happening on websites is that, on desktop, the line of text stretches almost all the way from left to right across the entire screen. This makes your text harder to read because a prospect cannot read a whole line without moving their head left and right or putting additional strain on their eyes.
So, keep your text lines narrow, ideally between 75 and 100 characters, depending on your font. This will help your visitors process and understand your text much easier and encourage them to stay on your pages longer.
#7 Make sure all internal links open in the same tab
Make sure all links that lead to the pages on your website open in the same browser tab. This prevents browser clutter, keeps your prospects focused on your content, and makes it easier for you to track the user journey and see in your website analytics what pages they visited and in what order.
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There you have it! Seven simple tips that you can implement today to make sure your website is easier to navigate and understand, which will encourage your prospects to stay on your website longer and explore more of it.
Try them today and see the difference for yourself!
