Researchers have found that when people arrive at a website, at least 50% of them will leave that website within 8 seconds.

Who says ?

We know this because it’s worth a lot of money to huge corporations to know how people use the internet. They want to know what people like and dislike, and what they do and don’t do. These huge corporations have spent millions on research so that they can figure all this out.

So all of this information is in the public domain and we can access it. The best bit is that the information these corporations have funded is just as valid for knowing how your website visitors behave.

To repeat, researchers have found that when people arrive at a website, on average 50% of them will leave that website within 8 seconds.

In other words, if your website doesn’t do something WITHIN 8 SECONDS to keep them there, at least 50% of them will leave. For you it could even be 60% or 80%.

There was an old metaphor doing the rounds when the web first started, and sadly it’s how a lot of businesses still view their websites. “The internet is like a huge gigantic shopping centre and your website is a shop. Everybody gets to come and browse your shop”.

It’s more accurate if we imagine that the people in this mall are walking at 60mph and they are looking for something very specific, and they only have 15 minutes to find it. They are only ever going to go into the places that obviously provide those services or goods, and if the shop looks as though it doesn’t, or they wouldn’t feel comfortable in that shop, they aren’t stopping, let alone coming inside.

Think about how you use the web. You SURF THE WEB. Think about the phrase ‘surf the web’. It means you go from one site to the next, to the next, to the next. You do it because you can, and you don’t stop until something interests you or catches your eye. You now know that even when you do stop, there is a 50% chance you will probably leave in 8 seconds if it doesn’t quickly become apparent that it has what you’re looking for.

That’s the challenge you and I face.

WE HAVE TO GET VISITORS TO STOP SURFING AND INTERACT WITH US

How do we do this? Here are three ways

1. Use Headlines

Look at your own website. If you don’t have a headline in the form of words, then your ‘headline’ is whatever your visitor first sees when they arrive at your page. It might be a logo, a graphic, a picture or a piece of blank screen, or worse a lame piece of text like ‘Welcome’, or ‘We have been in existence since 1982’. Be honest with yourself and ask, would this stop ME surfing ? If you have nothing to grab the visitor’s attention, then they’ll be gone.

Remember that the headline is the first thing that’s going to grab me, and interest me; and it needs to be strong enough to stop me surfing.

Just making this one small change will make a big difference for you. If you are using a headline on your brochures or any other advertising and it works, then use it on your website.

This is a fantastic article on writing compelling headlines, with some great examples.

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/whoneedsheadlines/

2. Use ‘The Fold’

Make sure that your compelling headline and content appears above ‘the fold’ of your website.

‘The Fold’ is a newspaper phrase. Imagine you are reading a large newspaper, and you have to fold it in half to read the top half before turning over to read underneath.

The equivalent on your website is what people see before they have to scroll down the page to read the rest.

So, going back to your website, what do you see before you have to scroll down? This plays directly by the 8 second rule. If you haven’t given the visitor sufficient reason to stop surfing, they probably won’t even scroll down.

Your visitor is not going to be staying if above the fold you are announcing your new CEO or the fact you just won an industry award or a long winded introduction or history of your company.

Why is that ?

3. Walk in Your Visitor’s Shoes

Put yourself in the shoes of your potential client. They have found you on the web because they have specifically looked for you, and Google has considered your site relevant to what they are looking for.

What are they interested in ? What concerns them ? What problem do they have that they want someone to solve ?

As a business owner, you are of course close to your business. You know it inside out. The temptation then is to write about your business on your homepage, and that can be a big mistake.

The truth is people don’t CARE about your business

Don’t take it personally. I’m sure they are all very nice people , and so are you; but that’s not what they are there for.

They are there because it’s likely that you have something they need. In short they have a selfish self-interest and it needs meeting.

If you can meet that self-interest by talking directly to them about how to solve their problem and challenges, you will have a chance of stopping them surfing.

Challenge

Go to your website as if you were a first time visitor. Be tough on yourself and ask yourself if you are really captivating your visitors in those first 8 seconds in a way that stops them surfing.

I see so many sites these days that are just too lumpy.

By that I mean that the content covers the businesses entire product and service offerings. Now there's nothing really wrong with that per se, if for example you are an e-commerce store selling a range of goods; because your 'hook' is that you are 'a store carrying a range of goods'. That's what your website trades as. But what if you are a small business and you actually offer a range of services that otherwise might be only loosely connected, then you should look at Niche-ing up your websites to allow better targeting.

What if for example, you are a landscape gardener, but you also hire out groundwork plant, and you own a 4x4 off-road range as well ? Loosely connected and conceivably, you might want just one site to advertise your services. Is one site going to be the best thing to do?

Take a friend of mine the other week. He wanted me to look at his website and give an assessment on how it might be improved if at all.

Now this bloke was a master-of-all trades.

He was a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker, and his site covered all of his skills.

It was a neat site, well laid out, informative and anyone directed to it would have seen an online brochure with good up to date content.

But what about that site being found on Google ? No Chance.

I advised him to create another three sites to deal with each niche, and leave the current site up and running with a link to the new sites. If you do want to get found by search engines, the first rule is the landing page content (usually your home page) has to be relevant to what the searcher is looking for, and also relevant to your Metadata (that's the keywords and site description hidden in your site back end code).

So if I'm looking for 'Candlestick Maker', it's unlikely I will find you on page 1 if Google has indexed your Home Page content as belonging to the web site of a Butcher. So if your site is covering too much ground, and yet you want to get new business by being found on Google, niche up and get each site relevant to your products or service.

As I write this there is much in the news about the global financial crisis, it's even likely there will be a two tier Euro zone; and it looks likely that people are going to be very cautious about spending... anything.

What will that mean for your business ? Well don't PANIC for a start. It's an ideal opportunity to grow YOUR business while everyone else is flapping around.

But, it means that you have to get good at marketing and do what the others aren't doing, to survive.

The most important thing to remember is that when people have less to spend, it might be tempting for a business to become the CHEAPEST around, enter a pricing war.

In actual fact, what people or businesses with less money to spend want is BEST VALUE for that money. They want to see you offering more value. You gotta be BETTER than the next guy, NOT CHEAPER

Of course, if you are offering a product or service that is exactly the same as what your competition is offering, then it is highly likely they will go and do business with who has the lowest price.

However...

If you concentrate on separating yourself from the competition by establishing yourself as the only viable solution, then... your prospective customers and clients will have but one option... YOU!

So how can you do this?

Well there is an almost infinite number of ways you can make yourself stand out from your crowd and attract an unlimited amount of customers and clients; however, the easiest and most important thing you should do is to position yourself as the expert in your industry and build a solid relationship with your prospects.

And the easiest way to do this is by specialising yourself in a niche within your industry, thus making yourself incomparable with anyone else.

So no matter what business YOU are in, get thinking of ways you can stand out from the crowd to make yourself the only viable solution to your prospects, and remember...

... treat your current customers and clients with the utmost respect and start to over-deliver to them, because not only is it the right thing to do...

... your current customers are your best and cheapest form of advertising!

GET A FREE COPY OF MY GUIDE 'THE POWER OF EMAIL' by clicking here and find out how you can engage with your existing customers

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