Let me ask you something very, very important: If someone asked you the very same question I pose in the title about keeping people on their website or yours longer and/or coming back, and you could only reply with a 1 word answer, what would it be?
Think about this for a moment before you read on…
The answer is this: Good content and trust.
It is because of good quality content and trust that people who visit your site, stay on it. It is also because of that, that they also come back, buy from you, ask your questions, trust your opinion and more.
I always preach about the importance of high quality content. Well what exactly is high quality content? It is simply information you put out there that people love and what does that mean? That’s right, they trust it.
This trust is also a very important factor with Google and why they will inevitably see your page as an authority to rank very high.
But just because we have this one word answer right now is really not a complete solution. The real question is how can we create trust and enjoy all of the benefits from our visitors that come with it?
Well there’s actually an infinite number of ways, but if there’s one major tip I can offer to do this, the answer would be to make yourself a niche site within which you know a lot about. This is really the best way to connect with people and earn that trust I talk about.
But that is still a general suggestion so I would like to offer 5 specific tips I would recommend you undertake on your site to get that trust, and get visitors to stay on your pages longer…
5 tips to increase content quality, trust and stay times on your website:
I use all of these tips on my website and they will help improve all 3 things we’re trying to do here:
1) Add a personal photo of yourself and an about me page.
Trust has different forms, and in this tip, when people actually see a REAL person behind a page, it gives them some sort of connection to believe in.
When someone, even you lands on a page which gives tips on whatever you can imagine or you’re reading content you enjoy, would the appreciation and trust you have for it drop if you never saw the person who wrote it?
And contrarily, would it rise if you actually saw the photo of the person writing it? I think the answer would be no for the first and yes for the second.
We as readers do NOT prefer to read advice from Mr/Mrs.X’s, we need to know about the people whose advice we take and a personal photo is a great start and way to make that connection.
For example, here is my personal about me page. You’re welcome to read it and if you need help writing your own, here is my tutorial on writing an about me page.
2) Write about your experiences through your content.
And be as detailed as possible…
Since content is considered to be at the top of the “SEO food chain”, the longer it is, the better it looks. And if you write on a topic with which you have intimate knowledge in, that translates into more potentially GREAT content being written.
For example…
On this page, if you browse the content, you’ll often find product reviews I do. Reviews for programs that “try” to teach people to make money online. Well as someone who has intimate knowledge on this subject, I always explain to people why said product may or may not work by giving them my own experiences with it and/or something like it.
When a person is reading this content and sees that the writer has tried so and so, it answers many of their questions and keeps them on the page far longer, as well as builds trust. I do this for EVERY article I write, including this one which I still hope you’re on 🙂
3) Write about solutions.
Every niche has a problem and every problem requires a solution right?
Well in addition to writing about your experiences in tip #2, most people will inevitably left wondering “What’s next?”. In the case of product reviews, if there’s something that is negatively reviewed by me, I will obviously get questions about what’s better.
Well that better recommendation is the solution. Now it may not necessarily apply to product reviews perse, it may apply to a common problem with the niche topic.
So being that you should ideally be the person who knows about this, you should have the solution, the answer to the question/s people ask inside your said niche topic and if you do, oh boy, you’re going to have some loyal readers for a long time to come, trust me.
This is the advice I give on my website’s homepage and it’s thanks to this advice, that I’ve made a lot of money from people who visit my website (see my $1 million affiliate marketing report).
4) Answer any and all comments.
First of, you will really want to open up the door inside your website for people to leave comments and messages and you will also want to make it easy to do so. For most sites which for example have a WordPress platform, this is extremely easy to do as the solution is just to check that you want comments enabled.
But the hard part is encouraging comments to be written on the page. Here’s some great tips for comments to fix that.
Typically if you utilize tips #2 and #3 correctly, you’re going to get a lot of visitors wanting to leave their thoughts on your pages and that’s going to look great.
Now another bonus tip that applies to #4: Answer EVERY single comment.
When you do, you show other visitors that would otherwise be on the fence or too shy to comment that you’re actually real, friendly and helping people out and it will make it easier for them to leave their thoughts too.
Not to mention that all these additional comments on your page lead to better SEO…
5) Interlink pages for greater stay times on your pages.
The beauty of interlinking is that it allows visitors who already browsing and hopefully enjoying your content to be exposed to more of your site and to read more resources without having to look for it themselves. Throughout this article, I have linked to several pages which I felt were relevant to this article and it is the same type of process you should exercise on your site as well.
Here is a great strategy for internal linking I recommend you read, but it is basically a branch of trust in which if visitors like and trust your content on one page and you link them to another, they’ll go there and this will also help them stay on the overall pages longer which Google will take note of.
My final thoughts: How to know if these tips are working.
1) Install Google Analytics and look at the overall stay time on your page. If it rises over the time you add these tips in, then this means visitors are generally staying longer.
2) Use Google Analytics to see how many visitors are returning visitors. If a huge chunk of traffic to your page comes from returning visitors, it means you have great content they like and keep coming back to and guess what? It also means you now have a following growing!
3) You get more comments and questions. This means more visitors are intrigued by your content and want to share their thoughts and learn more.
4) Your bounce rates decrease (Google analytics shows you this specific number).
Generally, these things are the most obvious sign of trust that I would look at.
Hi, Vitaliy. In today’s era with so many people trying to create income for themselves in businesses and who advertise through websites, a good percentage of them are not legit.
With so many fraud opportunities that can now be found online, the fact is that so many visitors to various websites view them with a great deal of suspicion.
Your statement that the most important factor regarding people coming to visit a business website would be trust. People taking the opportunity to see what is written within the various content articles of a website need to understand that the owner is completely legitimate regarding everything that is presented on the product(s). being advertised.
The website owner has the customers’ needs in place, ahead of his/her own interests in solely wanting to make money. That is a factor when determining trust.
It is always an easy decision for a visitor looking at a scam website to just click off. For the legit owner needing to keep visitors at the site, hoping that not only would they return but also read other post/page articles the five suggestions that you listed are crucial. I would also add in that the content itself be written in a legible, easy-to-read fashion.
In today’s age where so many people have attention deficit problems, having easy to read, understandable content is crucial dealing with that trust factor. The individual/owner of the website should engage completely with the visitors, almost as if he/she is in an informal conversation with them.
Content structure that is written in one, long paragraph would quickly turn off the interests of site visitors who just could not remain focused on the written words that would seem to drag on forever.
Along with the five tremendous suggestions that you stated, Vitaliy, and also with relevant content articles being consistently added to a website, an element of trust would be gained coming from the visitors who repeatedly visit those sites.
Jeff
Hi Jeff, I have nothing more I can add because I agree with you completely on everything 🙂
This site has been very helpful for me. I am new to all this and just got my website built. I tend to worry how to get people to my site and keep them interested. You gave me some great ideas on using my personal experiences to help promote my site. Thank you.
Getting people to the site involves keyword targeting Corinne, and writing content for that. Do that first and then install Google analytics to see how and if there is traffic coming to the site. From there, use the tips I mentioned in this article to get people to stay.
I’d add that it helps to ask question. Don’t just look to get comments, but to extend the conversation to go beyond what you originally thought. I always think of blogs as the opening line of a good conversation. The writing is only the start, getting the conversations going is how you get people to want to stay and to want to come back.
Well said Ethan! I have begun to use H3 phrases at the end of almost all my blog posts doing this. It ensures people see this and are challenged to say something.
Hi Vitaliy,
You are so right, we have to focus on trust. That way people can have a more enjoyable experience on our site, then the Google boost comes as a bonus for it.
I really have to work on some of the points you mention to see if my traffic starts increasing. Thanks for the tips, I’ll be sure to apply them on my next post.
What other factors would you consider for boosting traffic?
Thanks,
Luis
Hi Luis, really the big factor is taking this concept I put here and quantifying it. For example, read this post, it’s good to take that, combine it with this one to create good content. Then just keep repeating this strategy.
A blog which builds content again and again also builds authority with Google and with the added ingredient of trust, you really can make a wonderful and vibrant site that tons of visitors will want to come to and will naturally find through Google.
Hi Vitaliy. A great piece on how trust can help us make the authority in cyber space. Honestly, I’ve never thought about this being an important factor, but it seems there’s so much advantage in it. I’ll gladly use all your tips, thanks for that buddy!
On another note, about 20% of my visitors are returning visitors while I have an 81% bounce rate (taken from analytics). Do you think this is a good number or am I too shabby?
Bounce rate numbers and if they’re good or not depend on the type of page you have, I wrote about that a long time ago right here and it still is important today Isaac, I would read that, it’ll help you decide if your 81% bounce rate is good or bad.
And on the topic of trust, let’s face it, have you ever purchased from a website you didn’t trust? You may have, but in my experience, when you go on a site and don’t think about security when you buy something is an unconscious sign of trust, which if you can achieve on your page, will absolutely help it grow.
I couldn’t agree more. Visitor time on page is very important, google will knock your webpage if your bounce rate is high. Also, another important thing is page views. The more pages a visitor visits within your website the better, not only will that help out with their time spent on the page but will also tell google that you have good quality content that worth looking at. Very important to be unique and as interesting as possible. Quality equals rankings. And yes of course…trust. Great stuff Vitaliy…
Great points Davin! I would add that increasing page views is in part determined by good interlinking tactics like I talked about in my main points above. It would definitely benefit both the visitor and site owner.
Hello there! The more visitor stays on the page, the more the content and site develop trust, this is a amazing point put out there. All the points are really important and needs to be given more attention when we want our online business to grow. Thank you for these valuable tips, it is certainly going to help me as well as other marketers out there.
No problem Blesso 🙂