You’ve heard it all before: SEO is what gets you noticed. SEO increases page views, which leads to more exposure. That’s still true, but it’s not the only thing you should focus on.
Are you measuring your website’s performance solely based on how many views it gets? If so, you’re missing an essential piece of data – the amount of time spent on your site. Most internet users spend less than 15 seconds on a website.
That means you have 15 seconds to capture your audience’s attention. If you want your website to make an impact, you’ll have to stand out amongst the crowd by following the latest advice.
What worked to increase a visitor’s time on your site years ago will not work today. That’s why these hacks for keeping people on your website are based on new information and recent studies. Keep reading to get the most out of your content!
Keep Your Paragraphs Short.
Articles are easier to read when the paragraphs are smaller. To prevent your readers from getting not reading your post, Yoast recommends keeping your paragraphs shorter than 200 words each. If you’re struggling with this, consider the following:
- Make sure your paragraphs are divided, so they only cover one idea, point, or argument. If one point can be separated into two more specific points, create two separate paragraphs.
- Get rid of filler words, such as “very” or “much.” Replace phrases like “very hard” with one word that conveys the same idea, such as “difficult,” “demanding,” or “exhausting.”
Keeping your paragraphs short will increase your webpage’s readability score, which brings us to our second point…
Improve Your Website’s Readability Score.
SEO tools like Yoast give each of your webpages a readability score. Having a higher score on Yoast improves the likelihood of your pages showing up on Google.
Your content should be easy for a person to read – if your readability score is below 30, it’s too complicated for the average Internet user. Your goal should be to keep your score between 60-70. To bring your score up:
- Use action words and avoid passive language. Instead of writing “John’s car was stolen by Richard,” write, “Richard stole John’s car.”
- Shorten your sentences. Break up longer sentences when you can.
That being said, make sure you’re still writing for your audience, not for SEO. Your website content should be written to be read by actual people.
Don’t make readers think your website was written by a robot just for the sake of increasing your Yoast score!
Clean Up Your Web Design.
If your web site’s design is messy, readers will not want to stay on it. The clean, attractive design keeps your audience interested. Most content creators aren’t web designers, so take advantage of WordPress page builder plugins like Elementor or Beaver Builder.
- Use themes instead of coding from scratch. WordPress and Wix offer free, attractive website themes.
- If you coded anything by hand, make sure everything is coded correctly.
- Use headings and subheadings.
Attractive web design goes a long way in keeping people longer on your site reading your content.
Use Images.
No one wants to read a wall of text! Make your content more exciting by adding images to your blog posts and webpages. Be careful not to use images that are copyright protected. Most images on Google are!
I’ve been using Cloudways since January 2016 for this blog. I happily recommend Cloudways to my readers because I am a proud customer.
Search for free images on Pixabay, Pexels, and Unsplash.
You need to remember the fact that human beings are visual animals.
Personally, on my blog, I make sure that there’ll be at least an image every 4-5 paragraphs. Your blog posts should not be like a lengthy thesis paper.
Post Relevant, Recent Information.
Just like outdated advice won’t help you to keep visitors on your website, strategies based on old information will push to leave your site.
- Make sure you are using recent statistics and studies.
- Link back to recent articles – no more than a couple of years old.
- Make sure the information you’re sharing is the latest information available.
Posting new information, also helps you leverage the Google freshness algorithm to boost the rankings of your pages.
So, apart from publishing new content on your site, you need also to set a schedule for the content upgrade as it helps in increasing on-page engagement also have massive SEO advantages.
Use Bucket Brigades.
What’s a bucket brigade, you may ask?
These are words and phrases that keep people on your page. This is a tried and true concept that writers have been using since the days of sales letters. Backlinko uses bucket brigades to bring their average time spent on a page above four minutes. Here are some examples of phrases that work:
- Short sentences with a colon at the end, just like the sentence that came before this.
- Here’s the deal.
- It gets better.
- Listen
- Better or worse
These words, when you use in your web copy, make people stop and think. It aids people to read your content completely and hook them in to stay longer on your site.
Link Back to Your Own Content.
Why direct people away from your page when you can send them to another page on your website?
If you have more to say about the topic you’re writing about, show your audience all that you have to offer. Sneak those links in by mentioning concepts you explain further on another page.
Useful internal links help you a lot in terms of SEO. It’ll enable Google, and thus, your new blog posts will be indexed and ranked as a lot faster.
Avoid linking to irrelevant pages, and make sure you link relevant pages together to form topical authority in the eyes of Google
Make Your Links Open in a New Tab.
While it’s important to include links on your website, you don’t want to give readers a reason to leave your page. You need to keep that from happening by setting your links to open in a new tab. This is especially important if you’re linking to another website.
In WordPress, while inserting any links you just need to toggle the “open in new tab/window” button, you are good to go.
Don’t Use Clickbait.
Clickbait involves using phrases that are supposed to make people interested in what you have to say. Here’s the problem with that: nowadays, nobody falls for it.
Readers can smell clickbait from a mile away. No one takes these titles seriously:
- Doctors Hate This Mom for Her Solution to X.
- You Won’t Believe How Old X Is!
When people do fall for the bait, there’s often no need for them to spend more than a few seconds on the page. That’s because they uncover the secret hidden in the title right when they open the page.
Avoid using clickbait at all costs – or else, you’ll wind up with many unvisited pages.
Check for Spelling and Grammatical Errors.
Spelling and grammatical errors on your website are a huge turn-off. They make you look less credible to your readers.
Once you lose your credibility, your website visitors will close out their tab and never revisit your website. You don’t have to proofread alone – consider these solutions:
- Use an app like Grammarly before posting new content.
- Hire a proofreader. Need a cheap one? Check out Fiverr.
- Read out text loud while proofreading
- Take some break between writing and proofreading – or else your brain autocorrects the mistakes
Wrap up
With these tips in your tool belt, you’re now ready to keep your audience on your site while improving your SEO. It’s time to edit your content!
If you provide what readers need in your content, it’s almost certain that they’re gonna spend more time on your site.
Hope you guys found this post helpful.
