A new era of shorter attention spans
The internet is going to get ridiculously fast soon, ‘Broadband’ will be a thing of the past and be replaced by ‘Next Gen’. Next Gen will be capable of 20-40mb data transfer per second!
Increasing internet speeds will mean the world’s attention span gets shorter, as a result people will expect information quicker. So, it’s vital that your website is read and understood both quickly and effectively.
Does your website tell people what you do in an instant? If not, it might be time to take a step back, look at your website and de-clutter. This doesn’t mean taking a way all design elements, it might just mean reducing the amount of copy on your home page or actions visitors have to take – for example, is there too many buttons/link to click?
To begin a de-cluttering mission, figure out what visitors are currently doing on your website. This might sound like a tricky and expensive task but as usual, Google has a FREE tool to help – Google Analytics.
Most people in the world who have a website are familiar with Google Analytics, but are not so familiar with the wealth of tools and features available. Two tools/features in particular – ‘Site Overlay’ and ‘Bounce Rate’ will help you find out what current visitor behavior is:
Google Analytics – Site Overlay:
Site Overlay – This tool places an overlay on top of your site, so you can view what people do when they visit your site. i.e. which parts of the navigation do they click the most.
Google Analytics – Bounce Rate:
In simple terms Bounce Rate will show you how many visitors come to your site and leave within 5 seconds or less. Having a high bounce rate 60-100% tells you that visitors are put off by your site, maybe there’s too much content or they’re not sure what you do. A bounce rate of 50-30% seems pretty standard but ideally you want to get your bounce rate as low as possible.
What to do when you’ve discovered what current visitor behaviors occur
on your website?
Once you’ve been through Google Analytics it’s time to decide what to remove and/or edit on your website, this is where we come in! A good digital design agency i.e. Jealous Design (free shameless plug), can help your get your site ready in time for ‘the new era of shorter attention spans!’
p.s. Maybe the title for this post should be “A nu era of shrtr attentn spns”…
Tags: Google Analytics, Next Gen, website design