Bounce. Just the word alone makes you think of happy summer days on a trampoline. The word sticky, on the other hand, usually makes you feel yucky.
But in the world of websites, bounce is a bad thing while sticky can be very good.
The bounce rate for a website is the percentage of visitors who come to the site and leave instead of going to another of your pages. If your website has a high bounce rate, you may be missing a valuable opportunity to convert those visits into paying customers for your products and services.
One of the best ways to keep visitors on your website is through sticky content. Sticky content is relevant, engaging, helpful, and makes people stick around to learn more about your business. You may not be able to address every customer’s individual needs, but you can make sure that you’re addressing topics that are of interest to your audience. Here are a few suggestions:
- Answer questions upfront. Potential customers probably ask a lot of the same questions. Keep track of things that come up in conversations and consider addressing them on your website. This adds value to the information you’re offering your website’s visitors, enhancing your reputation before they even pick up the phone.
- Give your content a local spin. Think of specific services that people are looking for in your city, state, or region. Or, there may be trends in your area that you want to take advantage of. In addition to promoting your services, customizing content for your location will help establish you as a local expert in your industry.
- Update content regularly. Content that’s obviously past its expiration date will turn customers off. If your website mentions services that have since evolved or improved—or if it ignores new products that are taking the market by storm—it’s time to freshen things up.
Although you can’t force visitors to your website to stick around, relevant content can help you reduce your bounce rate. When you help them by offering information they can use, you build goodwill and trust with your audience. And the more people can find to like about your business, the more likely they are to choose you when they’re ready to buy.