This is the second article in a series focusing on strategies for optimizing landing pages and boosting conversion rates. To start with the first article and learn about why the session duration metric is so important, click here.

As previously discussed, the amount of time a visitor spends exploring your landing page could be the difference between a new lead and a lost opportunity. But the question remains…How exactly can I keep people on the page longer without losing interest or looking elsewhere? Getting them through the door is hard. Keeping them there is harder.

If you look at Google Analytics and discover that your landing page’s average session duration is too short, it’s not the end of the world. While it might seem like a stressful problem to fix, you don’t necessarily have to start from ground zero with a whole new site. In reality, you can make huge steps towards a better session duration with just a few tweaks. Without starting from scratch, these minor changes can lead to a dramatic uptick in your conversion rate.

This article will discuss some of the proven methods for keeping visitors on the page longer and ultimately improve your conversion rates.

Bounce Rates and First Impressions

When it comes to landing pages, few things are more important than a good first impression. The “first impression metric”, known as a site’s bounce rate, measures the percentage of visitors who exit the site within seconds. A landing page’s bounce rate and session duration work hand in hand to measure how long prospects spend exploring the site. Unfortunately, if people don’t bother to spend more than a moment on the page they’ll never realize how much they could benefit from your offer. According to a study performed by RocketFuel Analytics, an average website is generating a 55% bounce rate. On the higher end of the spectrum, a poorly developed landing page can see a bounce rate as high as 75%! That means that a majority of traffic to your site could be leaving before they even notice your call-to-action.

To ensure that prospects are sticking around, marketing experts have identified some of the top reasons for high bounce rates. Surprisingly, most can be addressed with some simple fixes. It turns out that the majority of websites with a high bounce rate are reported as unintuitive, confusing, untrustworthy, or containing too much information.

Sites that are considered unintuitive or not user-friendly may be overpopulated with links which may make navigating the page more confusing than intended. Something as simple as removing unnecessary  links can result in a 100% increase in conversion rates.

When sites contain too much information, visitors may grow impatient if they can’t quickly find what they’re looking for. Potential leads shouldn’t feel like they’re drowning in text. Breaking up a wall of words with colorful images and useful graphics can work wonders in improving your landing page’s design and providing a more welcoming user experience.

Perhaps the most important factor in determining a page’s bounce rate is loading speed. Visitors are more likely to give up on your site with every passing second. Google’s research has revealed that the chances of a bounce decrease by 32% when a page’s load time went from 3 to 1 seconds. If your page takes as long as 5 seconds to load, your bounce rate is likely around 40%! That means a slow loading website could be the only reason for half of your potential leads never seeing your offer. Every second matters.

Interested in your page’s loading speed? To run a speed diagnostics test on your website check out https://tools.pingdom.com/.

Don’t Forget About the Phones

When it comes to session duration, one of the most overlooked aspects of a company’s landing page is often the mobile version. At the end of 2021, 54.4% of all web traffic was generated by mobile devices. That means a majority of potential leads are visiting your site from their phones. Despite the large percentage of mobile-based sessions, a recent survey revealed that half of the internet’s landing pages aren’t currently optimized for mobile devices.

If your landing page isn’t designed for mobile devices, you might be missing out on thousands of potential leads. A landing page that hasn’t been formatted for smaller screens and mobile operating systems would directly affect your session duration. If visitors are unable to navigate a landing page on their phones, it is highly unlikely that they will take the time to revisit the website on a desktop later on. For example, a study by Mobify found that 30% of online shoppers will abandon their shopping cart completely if the website isn’t optimized for their mobile device.

Interaction= Engagement

According to a survey conducted by GoodFirms, experts believe that the most effective way a landing page can improve its session duration is by including interactive content. Interactive content can be defined as any media that requires user participation. This can include videos, infographics, calculators, quizzes, and games just to name a few.

Interactive features are effective for several reasons. First, they educate users in an entertaining way which helps to increase levels of engagement. If people are having fun on your website they are more likely to stay on the page and explore everything you have to offer. The more interest that you can instill in your prospects, the more likely they are to dedicate more time to learning about the product. For example, videos alone have been shown to increase a landing page’s conversion rate by up to 86%!

Interactive elements also help to set your company apart from the hundreds of other websites on the internet. A fresh look with engaging content can be a welcome break from the boring landing pages a potential lead has come to expect. Ultimately, interactive features can place your landing page ahead of the competition.

We All Love to Learn About Ourselves

One of the top-performing types of interactive elements are those that promote two-way engagement. Here, the content provides unique feedback on a prospect’s inputs. A personality test, for example, engages potential leads when they complete a series of questions and receive a personalized result. Thus, the quiz not only works to engage the prospect but also provides targeted information unique to every visitor. Tests like these can be used to extend session duration and increase the chances of conversion into a qualified lead.

Personality tests specifically can be a successful conversion tool because they appeal to the intrinsic curiosity to learn more about ourselves. We all want to find out what makes us tick. Real-time feedback to responses in the form of a grade, score, or label can also act as confirmation bias whereas a lead learns something about themselves they may have already suspected. All of these personalized outcomes will help to hook a potential lead and guide them closer to answering your call-to-action.

Your Turn…

In thinking about how to optimize your landing page’s session duration, it’s important to put yourself in the prospect’s shoes. Ask, “What would keep me on the page?”. You may find that the answer to this question contains many of the same things that we have discussed throughout this article. A clean design, simple structure, easy-to-understand call-to-action, interactive elements, and mobile optimization can all contribute to longer session durations. At the end of the day, these simple solutions are designed to keep visitors on your page longer and will catapult your conversion rates.

Stay tuned for our next article for more industry-leading strategies to help maximize lead generation!

If you’d like to learn more about website optimization, Generation Marketing’s team of professionals are ready to help! With years of experience developing high-performing landing pages, we take pride in helping companies achieve the conversion rates they deserve. Based on up-to-date marketing research, our website development strategies work to solve all of the problems discussed in this series of articles.

Martin Durlak

President,

The Generation Marketing