The Sticky Page
The longer visitors stay on your web page, the more interested they are in what you have to offer. The sticky page is just that, one that gets readers to stay glued.
The key to making a sticky page is to build a high-quality page. One that is very unique, useful, informative and good looking. No wonder why Google or search engines, for that matter, are using the time-spent indicator to measure how long people stay on web sites.
The bottom line is the more time visitors spend on your site, the more likely it's going to have more traffic, more comments, more ratings, more recommendations, more backlinks and of course, more purchases! I'll show you how to make a sticky page!
"In a few seconds you gain or lose a visitor. When visitors read your web page, they must be able to identify significant factors that convince them to stay"
Understanding How Visitors Read Online
This is essential in writing and designing a web page
This heatmap is courtesy of eyetools.com
"The key to retaining visitors and increasing the time they spend in your webpage is to have relevant and interesting information"
Common Sense SEO
Attract Relevant Visitors
In the past, people have had the need to do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for their websites, since search engines had different and complicated algorithms.However, things have changed, search engines have matured and they have gone back to plain old common sense. Basically, search engines, like Google, are starting to appreciate the same things that real people are looking for in a website:
- well-written useful and unique content
- well-thought-out intuitive navigation
- titles that help identify relevant keyword phrases
Coming Up Next
some of the most useful techniques on how to entice your visitors and hook them up to your page!
Make Them Stay Longer & Return Frequently
Web Design Tips
"The idea is to create a web page that encourages visitors to spend as much time as possible on it"- Provide direct, concise, clear and very useful content. The type of information that cannot be found elsewhere.
- Write an engaging introduction.
- Use a direct language that is easy to read.
- Use meaningful titles and subtitles. They should be brief and convey a summary of the section.
- Keep paragraphs short, use simple sentence structure. Breaking a long paragraph into several smaller sections invites the viewer in to read.
- Make your page more scan-friendly. Large blocks of dense text intimidate the visitor.
- Make your content into a story format.
- Proofread your content.
- Make your content visually pleasing. Aesthetics and style are so important in engaging the reader into understanding the subject of your web page.
- Pick a relevant and enticing introduction picture.
- Lay out information to help web users.
- Use consistent formatting.
- Use contrasting colors. Text is easier to read when font and background color are in high contrast. Low contrast irritates the reader and causes eye fatigue.
- Use bullets and numbered lists. They help get the readers attention.
- Use HTML/CSS code if necessary.
- Highlight, underline or bold important keywords or phrases.
- Add plenty of beautiful pictures and graphics.
- Add engaging videos.
- Involve the reader. Add call-for-action modules such as poll, plexo and guestbook.
- Use plenty of white space. Thoughtful use of empty space helps the visitor's eyes to focus on the important information.
- Keep your web page fresh. Update frequently with new information.
More Suggestions
- List strong references. Add related links that open in a new window.
- Camouflage your products with your content. Try to sell them one product at a time, you'll sell more by limiting the choices.
- My secret tips.
Writing Web Content that Works
Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works (Interactive Technologies)
Amazon Price: $27.93 (as of 11/23/2009)
If you're a fan of usability, good user-centered design, and easy-to-read helpful books, and you'd like to improve your site's performance with better writing, definitely get this book.
"The longer they stay, the longer they play"
How Is Time Spent Measured?
PageRank and LensRank Metrics
It's been rumored that the time spent metric is one of the most important indicators used by Google and Squidoo's algorithm in determining the rank of your site.It's supposed to be a complex calculation in which many parameters, weights and indices are taken into consideration. However, we don't know the exact math for this indicator, in fact, the formula will never be revealed because search engines don't want people to manipulate the system and cheat.
So we're going to attempt to simplify the explanation for this indicator as follows:
- The calculation is made over the lifetime of the visitor session to the web page.
- The visitor interactions are tracked by specific engaged events.
- Those events could be: clicking a link, clicking on a picture, voting in a poll, downloading a file, watching a YouTube video, commenting in a guest book, emailing content to a friend, printing a page or exiting the site.
- The timestamp for the last interaction determines the time the user spent on your page. The picture below shows the time spent was 38 seconds.
But there's always a catch. Most of the time, it's impossible to know the exact time a visitor spent on your site. In other words, one cannot account for how long a visitor stayed reading your page after the last timestamp interaction. However, time spent on your website is considered a key indication of how successful your site is in attracting relevant visitors.
The 10 Second Rule
"If your lens is boring, your visitors will not wait around to look for the information, even if you have what they're looking for"
Building Findable Websites
Building Findable Websites: Web Standards SEO and Beyond
Amazon Price: $29.69 (as of 11/23/2009)
This book is an excellent resource for both new and experienced web designers concerned with increasing SEO and creating a usable site for their end user. Walter manages to cover so much without leaving the reader feeling overwhelmed with information overload. He does this, partly, by writing in a clear, concise and friendly tone. The book is also organized in a logical manner and includes a section on blogging, content and markup strategies.
What Makes Visitors Leave Your Site?
Don't let them get away!
- Unattractive look.
- Irrelevant content, bad spelling and poor grammar.
- Information is too hard to find.
- Long chunks of text without text formatting.
- Cluttered text and graphics.
- Too much advertising.
- Long lists of endless products.
- Distracting colors that make the text hard to read or focus on.
"The longer a visitor lingers on your page, the more likely he or she is to purchase a product or at least bookmark it and be back again"
The Best Reason
Google Traffic vs. Time Spent
In other words, the higher you rank in Google's SERPs, the more clicks your site is
going to get.
Is there a better reason to extend the time visitors stay on your webpage?
Remind Them to Add to Favorites
A Very Simple Thing
Money for Nothing
(and your clicks for free)
Whether or not you think the time-spent metric is used by Google or Squidoo's rank algorithm is not that important.
The bottom line is if you make a very unique, good-looking, informative and useful web site, you're guaranteed to get
more traffic and more purchases.
Make Them Stay Longer
Add Your Own Tip!
1
Watch the length of your lens
Too long and readers start to get overwhelmed with more...6 points
2
Associate a picture to a link
Make a picture or graphic clickable by associating more...5 points
4
Add a personal side to them
Good content is made better by personal anecdotes more...5 points
5
Make your lens load fast
Time is precious, so visitors won't waste it waiti more...3 points
6
Add a juicy link near the top
Just in case visitors leave quickly, add a keyword more...3 points
Love This Lens?
- Rate this lens:
- Email it
- Favorite it
- Lensroll it
Postscript of Utmost Importance
This page automatically makes a 30% donation to the incredible nonprofit, GlobalGiving , which is an online marketplace that connects you to the causes and countries you care about.You select the projects you want to support, make a tax-deductible contribution, and get regular progress updates - so you can see your impact.
PageRank Tiers
One Thing Leads to Another
Squidoo has a tier system in place for advertisement revenue, in which lenses in the top LensRank (LR) tiers receive a higher percentage of that revenue than those in the lower tiers.The tiers are approximately divided as follows:
Tier 1: LR monthly average between 1 and 2,000
Tier 2: LR monthly average between 2,001 and 10,000
Tier 3: LR monthly average between 10,001 up to 85,000
For a more detailed information on payouts please read:
Squidoo Payday Questions & Answers.
By making visitors stay longer, your lens increases its chance of falling into tier 1 or 2. As a result, you'll get a better monthly payout.
Can You Make Them Stay Longer?
Give it a try!
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Reply
- Kate-Phizackerley Kate-Phizackerley Nov 23, 2009 @ 3:18 pm
- Very good. I'd disagree with time on page. I always have at least two threads running in a browser so I'll open a page then while it is loading I'll swap to another tab/window and work on another page. When I've finished with that, I'll load a new page in that thread and swap back to the first. For me time on page relates to how long I spent on that other unrelated page.
Nonethelss an excellent lens on what is often a poor topic on Sqidoo. 5* and blessed.
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Reply
- SuperZoe SuperZoe Nov 18, 2009 @ 9:23 am
- Great ideas here! I love your "don't forget to rate this lens" graphic. Good idea to put it at the bottom since most people usually leave without rating.
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Reply
- Spook Spook Nov 17, 2009 @ 8:05 am
- I'm nearly always a bit slow in getting around but get there in the end. It's not my catergory but there are leeways. So, Blessed by an Angel.
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Reply
- aj2008 aj2008 Nov 13, 2009 @ 5:03 am
- I loved it the last time I visited but I wasn't an Angel then. SquidAngel Blessings for a great example of the sort of lens I am looking for in SEO. Thank you!
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Reply
- lasertek lasertek Nov 12, 2009 @ 6:30 pm
- Nice! Will definitely put your ideas on my lenses. Thanks for sharing.
5 stars for you! Hope you could visit my lenses. Thanks again.
- Load More
Thank You for Sticking Around
Come back anytime!
As you may have noticed, I have followed my own advice in designing this lens.
I hope this information has been useful to you, the emerging lensmaster!
Lensmaster Cinetech has been a member since March 16 2007, has rated 1,066 lenses, favorited 51, and has created 19 lenses from scratch. This member's top-ranked page is "YouTube High Definition". See all my lenses
Never Stop Improving Your Lenses
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