[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Last month, I was invited to join the Forbes LA Business Council. As a benefit of membership, I am now publishing articles on Forbes.com. My first article covers questions you should ask when engagement on your business website is low.

I was inspired to write this article after explaining to some of my clients how to judge their content performance. Even though these clients were in totally different verticals, they faced many of the same issues: users weren’t clicking on links, but rather abandoning their sites after only a few seconds.

I hope these questions help you think critically about potential ways to improve your website.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]

Five Questions to Ask When Online Engagement Is Lacking

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If your business website doesn’t sell something directly via e-commerce, it’s hard to tell whether your site is “working.” You might be the owner of a brick-and-mortar store trying to increase foot traffic, or you might offer a service where sales occur offline, such as a plumber or dentist.

In these situations, many business owners mistakenly look at raw website traffic and assume clicks are the most important metric of success. The more eyeballs on my site, the thinking goes, the more interest my business must be generating.

Clicks to your website are important, but they’re not everything. A high number of clicks won’t do your business any good if visitors are leaving your site in droves. For a fuller picture, make sure to analyze these three key online engagement metrics in your Google Analytics data: bounce rate, average time on site and average pages per visit. [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]

Definitions

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  • Your bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page. Usually, this means they’re hitting the “back” button.
  • Average time on site is the average number of seconds visitors spend on your web property. You want your average to be enough time for visitors to read or watch most of your content or to give your product ample consideration.
  • Average pages per visit are the number of distinct web pages visitors look at in a single session. Once they land on the first page, are they interested in seeing more?

What qualifies as “good” for these metrics will differ based on your content, but low engagement is easy to see: more visitors are bouncing rather than staying on your site, the average time they spend on your site is just a few seconds, and the average number of pages they visit hovers near one.

When this happens, your audience is telling you that your site just isn’t holding their attention. To improve your online engagement, ask yourself the following questions:

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Q1. How quickly is my page loading?

[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Internet users are impatient. If your page takes longer than two seconds to load, most visitors will abandon it and find somewhere else to go. You can measure your page load time with a tool like Pingdom or Webpagetest. Then, address any issues by optimizing your code and compressing your images for faster speeds.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]

Q2. Am I setting the right expectations?

[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]If you’re bringing visitors to your site from social networks, ads, or other referrers, make sure that your copy is setting the right expectations. For example, don’t advertise a particular article or product and then link to your homepage. Visitors expect to land exactly where you said you would point them, and when you don’t, they won’t bother to find their own way. Also, set the right expectations for the type of content you are offering. If your site is editorial in nature, be sure to use words like review or analysis so that users won’t confuse it with an e-commerce site. Conversely, if your site is shopping-focused, use words like buy and get, so visitors know they can purchase items.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]

Q3. Is my site mobile-optimized?

[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]If your site doesn’t offer a good mobile experience, you’ll often see low engagement. Make sure your site functions well no matter what device visitors use to enjoy it.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]

Q4. Am I paying for the right traffic?

[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]If you’re using search engine ads like Google Ads, examine your device targeting. High bounce rates are often the result of accidental or “fat-finger” clicks from ads that appear in mobile apps. Analyze your traffic from mobile devices to ensure you aren’t wasting your ad dollars on ineffective interstitials or banners.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]

Q5. Is my content engaging?

[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Have you made your site as visually appealing and well-written as possible? Is it overly crowded or difficult to navigate? Do an honest examination of your site and look for areas of improvement in design, copy, and artwork.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Addressing these questions will help you retain your website’s visitors. Keep an eye on these engagement metrics over time, and set goals that your visitors will stay longer, click on more pages and won’t bounce as often. You might even find that a smaller but more engaged audience is a higher value to your business.  [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]This column originally published on Forbes.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”4827″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]

Author: KIM KOHATSU

Kim Kohatsu is the founder of Charles Ave Marketing, where she brings the power and reach of Madison Ave to small businesses and startups.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”10px”][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-facebook” size=”xs” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fcharlesavemktg||target:%20_blank|”][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-twitter” size=”xs” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.twitter.com%2Fkimkohatsu||target:%20_blank|”][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-linkedin” size=”xs” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fin%2Fkimkohatsu%2F||target:%20_blank|”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Kim Kohatsu
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