Happy Halloween!

While you may be enjoying scaring the little ghosts and goblins visiting your house tonight, there’s definitely one group of visitors you don’t want to scare away – your website’s visitors!  And few things will spook them more than a poorly designed site.  

In fact, according to KO Marketing’s 2015 Web Usability Report, 94% of people reported that poor web design was the reason they mistrusted or rejected a website, 

and 48% determined if a business was credible by its website’s design alone.  So this week, we’re sharing 3 tips to help you design a boo-tiful website.

But first things first.  How can you tell if your site strikes terror in in the hearts of your visitors?  Easy!  Take a look at three key metrics.

3 Ways to Tell Your Website is Scaring Away Visitors

 

1. Average Session Duration: This is the typical amount of time visitors spend on your site.  Though there’s a lot of variation among different types of websites, a good benchmark is between 2 and 3 minutes.  

 

2. Pages Per Session:  This is the average number of pages visitors view before leaving your site.  According to Spinutec, the ‘unofficial’ industry standard is 2 pages per session.  

 

3. Bounce Rate:  This is the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page on your site.

 

 

3 Tips to Design a Boo-tiful Website

1. Make It Easy to Navigate.  It’s fun to get lost in a haunted corn maze, but your site should be easy for visitors to follow.  For best results, keep it consistent throughout your site, use simple user-friendly language, and don’t make visitors have to click on multiple links to find what they’re looking for.

 

2. Keep Design Elements Uniform.  While it’s great to get an assortment of goodies when you’re trick or treating, using a variety of fonts and colors will visitors running away faster than you can say ‘trick or treat’.

 

3. Clear the Clutter.  Get out that witch’s broom and clear away anything that doesn’t add value and distracts from your business’ key message.  Prioritize information, simplify language, minimize sidebars, and use graphics strategically.  

 

Have some favorite web design tips?  Share them in the comments below!

 

Theresa Wray

Content Manager of Raney Day Design. Theresa dreams of living in a world where small business owners are able to leverage their online presence to get the results they want . . . and where the coffee pot is always full!  Connect with her on LinkedIn.