How to Increase Session Time Through Website Optimization [+infographic]

You have mastered traffic to your website, so how do you keep these people there longer? With the right website optimization. Here are just a few reasons why you have to be mindful of your website and why making it user-friendly might make it search engine-lovable.

Make sure it’s responsive

A lot of people consume content on the go, hence a drastic increase in mobile and tablet views. If your website is still not responsive or adaptive, you have to do it now. It becomes very irritating and sometimes disappointing when the website takes too long to load, the text is way too small and you start zooming in and out and swipe to read the whole thing and the screen just starts jumping.

Almost 1/3 of your traffic is viewing your website on mobile, make it worthwhile their time through website optimization! Ensure that your website looks beautiful and feels functional on the entire wide array of devices. This might even increase your sales!

Bonus points: This will also help your SEO, because Google encourages responsive website designs. First, test how Google bots see your website. You can use very simple Mobile-friendly Test from Google or you can get a list of mobile usability issues using Mobile Usability Report from your Webmaster Tools account.

Don’t create a separate mobile website as subdomain. Your main website should be itself responsive. You don’t get to have two websites!

Make sure it’s simple

How many times did you try to find something on a website and couldn’t because of overly complicated menu, changing images and just overall clutter?

Not only does simple website makes things easier, and thus less stressful, it also makes for an overall pleasurable experience. People are bombarded with information, graphics, visuals and text all day long – simplify the job for the mind and the eyes.

Also, it’s a good idea to make website “lighter,” so get rid of all large images that weight more than 2 MB. You also might want to make your menu shorter and to the point. However, be cautious not to take away too much and strip the site off of its usability. However, any SEO-purpose pages or pages that don’t have a true value to a customer can be taken away.

Besides, it goes hand in hand with the previous point – simpler designs make navigating websites easier and less cumbersome. Simple websites also tend to load faster than overly flashy ones, helping them rank higher in search engines.

Expanding on the previous point, invest in a well-designed website. Think about it this way – it’s better to pay a higher price once and get a perfect website that will stay constant for at least a few years or paying smaller fees over and over again every time you run into issues, challenges and additions.

Besides, high-quality websites make your brand look high-quality. It follows that when you invest in a beautiful website design, you’re investing in branding and overall success of the company – you get a 3-for-1 deal right here. Your website can be both simple and very stylish if you hire the right people who know good design practices.

Images, logos, fonts

Good design relies on details. Don’t use stock images on your homepage! Invest in custom photos that can be used over and over again. Make your logo stand out and use it consistently across all of your digital presence and as a copyright on your images.

The hot trend right now is highly-visual websites with lots of high-quality, large –dimension images. You don’t need lots of them – depending on the amount of pages you have on a website (remember, simpler is better), 10 – 30 images will suffice for a while.

BCBG Maxazria has a consistent feel to their online presence

Colors

Colors carry a lot of information in them. This is why it is important to have a small brand guide and play by the rules. Think of a few colors that should represent your brand. Think about the hues and shades you want to use. Should they be bright and vivid to convey energetic brand? Should they be kept pastel for elegant look? Should they be toned down for a serious feel?

All of these things are very important as the color is one of the most prominent things with every design, not only websites. Once you figure out which colors to use, use them consistently across all of your digital channels.

Images for blog posts, website, social media channels and e-mail communications should be kept the same. This will “condition” your customers to recognize your brand instantly by just looking at your images. Same goes for fonts – whether you choose playful, serious, or modern – stick with it.

Tell a story

Your whole website should add up into one cohesive story of your company. Tell stories, share photos, and be consistent at presenting yourself to this world. Consistency is one of the key elements to gaining trust. Avoid brand (and branding) confusion and your company will stay strong and tall above other companies.

What do you find attractive? Share links and thoughts in the comment section below and don’t forget to download the infographic for your future reference.

This post originally appeared on The Social Media Current.