It’s enough of a challenge to bring eyes to your website, but getting them there isn’t the hard part. It’s keeping them there that matters.

Ever heard the term “bounce” or “bounce rate” and wondered what it means? Well, bounce is what happens when a reader visits your website, then leaves right away. Little interaction, no sale, no email subscription. The reader came, maybe checked out a page or two, and took off, never to return. The bounce rate is the measurement of visitors who bounce from your site, usually shown as a percentage.

That’s not what you want for your website, right? Of course not.

And while there will inevitably be some visitors who bounce, here are three easy but powerful hacks you can use when designing or updating your website to keep readers there longer.

3 Simple but Killer Hacks to Keep Customers on Your Website

Hack #1: Choose your colors carefully. While your website colors must be consistent with your brand, experts recommend not using much more than two. A good web designer can help you get away with three.

However, the reason for caution with web colors is that you’re asking people to stay on your site and view your content. The site has to be visually pleasing and easy on their eyes if you want them to stay.

The standard look is usually a white background with black (or any darker color) text, which is the easiest for people to read. If your brand calls for the opposite (a dark background with light text), be mindful that it adds a little strain to the viewer’s eyes. Darker text on a lighter background (not necessarily white) is easier to view.

Hack #2: Font and font size. Obviously, this hack offers more creative space depending on the font(s) used in your logo and marketing materials, but the key thing you need to know is that your font should be no smaller than size 14. As marketing expert Derek Halpern puts it, “14 is the new 12.” The larger font size is easier to read onscreen; anything smaller strains your viewer’s eye.

Also, keep the amount of fonts you use on your website to a minimum. You should only need three at most: a Sans Serif font (examples include Arial or Helvetica Neue) for your headings, a Serif font (examples include Times New Roman or Georgia) for your body text, and maybe the third font for emphasis, such as special offers, or for digital media captions. If that third font isn’t necessary, don’t use it. The two should do you good.

Hack #3: Use your images to direct the readers’ eyes to your content. ThinkTraffic.net, Corbett Barr’s successful Internet marketing blog, offers a brief marketing report in its toolbox that includes this hack.

Every image has what are called leading lines, lines that the eye naturally follows across the picture. For example, an object’s angle in the picture, an arm or fingers, or the direction the person in the image is looking in (the eyeline). These things create lines for the eye to follow, and you can take advantage of that by leading your viewer’s eyes across the picture and seamlessly into your content.

Go back to the image for this post or any of our older blog posts and see for yourself. Our Ready Inc. blog post images are usually positioned in a way that encourages the reader’s eye to easily move from the image straight to the body text.

This hack is almost subliminal. Most people never think about it, and it works.

These hacks are simple and painless.

They’re all attached to the concept that your website has to be visually pleasing to the eye, but we wanted to give you some helpful specifics. If you would prefer to have them done for you or you just don’t have the time to do it yourself, we at Ready Inc. would be happy to make your business website the dynamic success it should be. Contact us today.

_{Flickr photo by Eric C. Bryan.}