Many business owners realize the need for their business to have a website. It’s a great tool that can increase the amount of business you do. In order for your website to do this, though, it needs to be compelling enough to convince visitors to stick around, instead of leaving in search of another business.

    Use Visual Appeal

    To start, your website needs to be visually appealing. Your website has less than a second to make a good first impression. You don’t want an outdated design, poor color choice, or poor use of space to turn people away. Instead, keep your site visually simple and easy to understand. Use high quality images and graphics. Keep it easy and intuitive to navigate. Remember to make your site visually appealing across different devices. With all the consumers accessing sites through smartphones, it’s important that you optimize your site for smartphone use, and not just computers.

    Quality Content

    Once you’ve made your first impression with your visual appeal, your content needs to be compelling enough to catch the interest of consumers. Quality content is unique, interesting, and accurate. The vast majority of customers consider content trustworthy when evaluating your site. You might keep it interesting by using different mediums, such as video or infographics, in addition to written information. Keeping your content unique and interesting helps set you apart from other businesses and can make consumers want to see what else you have on your website.

    Internal Links

    One of the things you can do to help consumers navigate to different pages of your website they might find interesting or useful is to utilize internal links. Internal links are links on one of your site’s pages to other pages on your site, which can be helpful for reducing your bounce rate. When building these links, use relevant keywords to help visitors understand what they are going to navigate to. Make sure that the clickable text of the link, called the anchor text, is something that people will want to click on to learn more about. That will encourage visitors to stay on your site longer and explore it more fully.

    Just having a website for your business isn’t enough. If it’s going to do your business any good it needs to convince consumers to stick around long enough for them to convert into consumers. Make sure your site is visually appealing, has quality content, and utilizes internal links. That will help encourage visitors to stick around longer.

    Read this next: How to Improve Your Website for Maximum Reach

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