Using behavioral design to reduce the rate of r

It 's no surprise that humans have terribly short attention spans. In fact, a Microsoft study put a number on it: 8 seconds - less than a goldfish 's attention span. The implications for online marketing are enormous. In a noisy and highly competitive online space, you either grab a visitor's attention the moment they land on your website or you lose them - maybe forever. Bounce Rate is an important statistic for measuring how users interact with a website. It shows the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing a single page. Think about the times when, as a web user, you visited a website and were immediately taken to the back button. While the decision to leave the page may have been made subconsciously, the reality is that some"unattractive" elements on the website influenced this decision. It is the basis of behavioral design. The reasoning is that while some elements of a web page can keep users away, there must be other characteristics that can make them stay. BJ Fogg, a leading behavior scholar, has studied in depth how technological solutions influence behavior and describes a three-step method for using design to change behavior. They are:

• Getting specifics about the desired behavior
• Making it easy for users to achieve this outcome
• Using triggers to prompt the behaviour.

If we apply this method to bounce rates, then the first step is clear. The goal is to get the visitor to your site to click on another link. But how do you meet the other two obligations? How to createan environment that encourages users to take this action? There are three strategies to implement.

Improve the brand

Fogg, along with other researchers, studied 2,500 internet users to understand how they assess the credibility of a website . They found that the average consumer paid much more attention to the visual design of a site than to its content. Almost half (46.1%) of participants rated the credibility of a website based on its "design aspect". This includes the general appeal of the visual design, layout, typography, and color schemes. What does this mean for bounce rates? If users don't see your website as believable, you'll have a hard time getting them to stay, let alone click on anything else on your site. A uniform and visually appealing branding image immediately catches the attention of a site visitor,especially if you are a new brand. Therefore, it is important to have a brand identity with consistent branding - not just for your web pages (copy and color), but for your entire web presence (including media social and landing pages ). Advances in technology allow companies of all sizes to build their brand identity from data. Tailor Logo, for example, is a tool for generating branding logos / kits using dedicated machine learning algorithms that allow businesses to stay consistent across all touchpoints where users can. meet your brand. Additionally, the tool helps users develop the perfect typography for their branding through a series of carefully crafted questions that provide insights about the identity and purpose of the brand. Typography is essentiale to improve visual design; a Nielsen study found that small font sizes and low contrast is the number one complaint of Internet users when it comes to online reading.

Reduce cognitive load

Cognitive load refers to the total amount of mental effort required to complete a task which involves the processing of information. In practical terms, this is about the amount of mental resources that users have to devote to being able to understand / process information on your website. Since the recent GDPR implementation, I have lost count of how many sites I get bombarded with two or three pop-ups as soon as I land on the page. This leaves site visitors with too much choice and too much to do. What should they do first? Accept privacy policies, reade content, subscribe to your newsletter or pay attention to the flashing ebook download? It’s not hard to see why users will choose the simpler option: a quick exit. What you need to do is consider each page as a single entity and think about what a user who visits a specific page might want to do. If this is a blog post, getting the information it needs is probably the user's primary intention . So, remove unnecessary pop-up windows and focus on providing the user with a seamless reading experience. Embedding links to your main magnets in the content could be much more effective in this context. If you need to use a triggered activation form, only show it when the user tries to exit the page.

Perfect your triggersurs

Revisiting Fogg's three-step model, the last step is to provide a trigger for the desired behavior. In this case, you want users to follow a link on your webpage. It could be a blatant CTA button or a more subtle link embedded in a blog post. But how do you make it easy for users to act on these signals? Make the triggers relevant . Suppose a user reads an interesting blog post on how to write web copy and wants to learn more techniques, but the suggested content and the main magnet on the blog post page is about data mining. What would be the next logical step for this user? Compare that to a page with links to relevant copywriting content. It is clear how this user will respond differently tly. Place the triggers in the right places. It is important to understand how users interact with spaces. If you haven't heard of Pattern F yet, you should. The Nielsen Group conducted an eye tracking research , which found that people scan web pages and phone screens in the form of the letter F. Content, users place the most Pay attention to the first few paragraphs, then somewhere in the middle and finally take a few glances at the end. In other words, they analyze - not read - the information. If you're hiding vital information between large blocks of text, that's bad news. Readers won't see it. Your content should be easy to scan so readers can quickly find the information they need. This includes links to more relevant content, offers or contact details.

Conclusions

A good bounce rate is important for online success. By using insights from online user behavior to improve your website design, you can increase engagement, reduce bounce rates, and ultimately improve conversion. Pius Boachie is the founder of DigitiMatic, an inbound marketing agency.

Find out more:

• bounce rate
• Website Design
• Website Development