Average session duration is a Google Analytics metric that pertains to the average amount of time online users spend on a website. A good average session duration, according to statistics, is anything above three minutes. If you want to make your website visitors stick around a bit longer, here are ten tips that will help increase average session duration.
1. Understand target audience intentions
Not all website visitors will automatically make a purchase of a product or payment for a service. It is important to gain an objective view of what guests want – whether to read your blog, get additional information, ask for a quotation, or buy something.
No matter the purpose of the visit, make sure their experience would be as efficient and as pleasant as possible. This will improve the chances of having them come back for more, stay a little bit longer, and be a recurring customer.
2. Map customers’ journey by time
Research shows that users spend less than six seconds looking at a website’s written content or main image, not more than 3 seconds on the most interesting part of the page, and about 50 milliseconds to judge whether it’s worthy to stay or leave. Find out the average amount of time spent by visitors on YOUR website. Then use this to determine if user experience meets user expectation.
Ask the following questions:
- Can visitors access anything of value during their website visit?
- Do visitors read anything informational or interesting during their website visit?
- Are there any barriers to getting where they want to be within your site?
- Are there usability mistakes that prevent customer conversion?
- Is the overall user experience during website visit engaging and enjoyable?
3. Write engaging, precise, high-quality content
Great content reflects business values, encourages website visitors to stick around a bit longer, and drives them to engage in the necessary action.
Make sure your content has the following qualities:
- Original
- Informative
- Actionable
- Has a clear and concise title
- Has proper headlines and subheadings
- Able to provide answers
- Updated regularly with new and accurate information
4. Vary content and format
Increase session duration of website visitors by including a mix of content within posts and pages. “Don’t just focus on flat article content,” said Andrew Becks of 301 Digital Media. “Mixing in relevant photos, infographics, charts, and interactive elements can help drive a deeper level of user engagement and time on page.”
5. Improve readability
Highly readable content is more likely to increase session duration and conversion rate. Create easy-to-read and easy-to-digest blogs and pages to inspire visitors to act. These are tips to improve readability of your website copy:
- Use words that your target audience understands
- Be quick in making your point
- Pay attention to typography for better legibility
- Ensure your content will arouse curiosity and influence readers to keep scrolling to the bottom
- Use images to drive attention to copy
6. Review cart abandonment rates
Check customer journey against behavioral data. Cart abandonment leads to lost sales and less opportunities to engage with potential customers. You need to know why visitors leave the site without purchasing; more importantly, find out what you can do about it.
The average cart abandonment rate, according to statistics, is between 60% and 80%. If yours is way higher, improve your checkout process to increase user engagement on your website.
7. Facilitate the entire checkout process
One of the easiest tweaks to increase session duration of website visitors is ensuring a faster checkout process. Here are some of the reasons why visitors don’t stick around a bit longer and will not complete the buying journey:
- Forced account creation
- Surprise costs and charges
- Lack of available payment methods
- Limited shipping options
- Cybersecurity concerns
8. Improve website performance
Slow website performance is one of the most common culprits of low time on page and higher bounce rates. According to a SaaS (Software as a Service) marketing consultant, people usually leave when a website that’s taking more than five seconds to load. “A slow website will quickly make a user lose patience and leave for another website,” explained Rave Reviews.
With that in mind, here are tips to improve website performance:
- Choose the right hosting option for your needs
- Merge or combine files
- Reduce server response time
- Minimize HTTP requests
- Minimize time to first byte
- Defer JavaScript loading
- Use asynchronous loading for CSS and JavaScript files
- Enable browser caching
- Enable compression
9. Optimize for mobile and other devices
More than 50% of online users get product information, read blogs, or finish the checkout process via mobile and other digital devices. Having a mobile-ready website will result to significantly longer average time on page.
Don’t forget to optimize for various browsers as website layout looks differently in Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Safari, check Opera, and other browsers.
10. Establish credibility
Whether this be your blog page, checkout, or product/service, give visitors good reasons why they should trust your website. This can be done in many different formats:
- Customer reviews, feedback, or testimonials
- Logo walls referencing popular partner brands
- Case studies of previous and current customers
- Trust marks such as industry awards, certifications, and secure site rating
Increasing average session duration of website visitors should be of top priority to marketers. If you want viewers to spend more time on your site, you need data-driven content creation guide like Cabana to do all that and more. Get started with Cabana for FREE.
