You have eight seconds to grab their attention. The moment they land on your website is first tick of the clock. Then your visitor will look for a maximum of seven further seconds to see if they are in the right place.

Without a good reason to stay, they leave, and it’s as sad and as simple as that.

So the question is how do you increase your chances that they’ll stay longer than eight seconds?

To understand that interesting problem you need to understand the general web visitor’s journey, which is going to be very much like this:

1. Go to www.Google.co.uk and enter their search keywords

2. Look at the titles and snippets on the results list and select a link (your link)

3. Land on the webpage that Google listed

So for example, let’s say you’re looking for a web designer in Staffordshire. Step 1 is you enter ‘web design staffordshire’. Step 2, look through the listings, you see the term web design Staffordshire in the title and the description so you click on that link and land on a website with a preconceived idea that this will be a website by a web design company in Staffordshire.

To hook them in on your website, to encourage them and browse and stay beyond the eight seconds, you simply have to meet their preconceived expectation.

So in our example, we have probably put an amount of work into ranking for ‘web design staffordshire’ so let’s make sure that we provide the information that our customer is expecting and get them hooked.

Write Compelling Webpage Headlines

Your page keywords should be in your headline for SEO reasons but also to let your visitor know quickly that they are in the right place. It’s the first text they’ll read so make your headline inviting, catchy and attention.

Include Appropriate Visual Clues

If you sell Yucca plants, then a picture of a yucca plant is probably a good idea. If you’re Yucca plants are available via mail order then something on the page that indicates postage will also help. This could be achieved with something very blunt, simple but effective like a post van clip art that links to your delivery terms and conditions.

Video and flash animation also grabs your visitor’s attention and can keep them looking longer. In our example we used ‘web design staffordshire’ and in this case we might use a slider animation to showcase recent web design projects.

Give visual clues that your visitor is in the right place and will help keep them engaged for longer than your prescribed eight seconds.

Give Something Valuable in the First Paragraph

Once your visitor has read your carefully crafted headline and spotted your well placed visual clues they’ll get down to the reason they came, Information.

Do not waffle with your first paragraph. If they came looking for web design in Staffordshire, give your reader something of value on that topic in the first paragraph. It might be an offer, it could be a guarantee of satisfaction or a promise of the lowest prices in Staffordshire. Whatever it is it should be your number one unique selling point and it needs to be in paragraph one.

If you have an e-commerce site then the first paragraph of the product description on a product page is equally important. You need to make your product descriptions spot on.

Effective Web Design Goes Beyond Visual Style

Web design is more than simply making it look good (although this is very important). Each web page needs to bring in visitors with the aim to convert them into a customer. To do this you need to hook them.

Remember, you only have eight seconds

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The author has an immense knowledge on chandeliers. Know more about light fixtures related info in his website.

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