Much of what we talk about in the series is designed to get people to check you out and visit your website. However, that is just the start. If you are successful getting them to visit, do they feel at home once they arrive? This article is designed to give you some tips on making visitors comfortable and wanting to look around once they arrive.

First, in addition to hopefully getting the visitor to reach out via phone, email or filled out contact form, why is making them feel at home important? For one, Google takes into account how many people leave your site from the page they arrived (Bounce Rate), the number of pages visited and the total time on the site as part of SEO. If you want your site to perform well for SEO, you want a visitor to look around at numerous pages and stay awhile. Google views this as a quality visit and this will benefit you as they determine your site’s authority with regard to certain keywords / key phrases.

So, what are a couple things you can do to make visitors feel welcome and encourage them to look around?

• Homepage As Navigation Hub – All of your websites most important categories should be reachable from the homepage. Give the visitor a very intuitive path to find the information they are interested in. Guide them down a path from choosing a category to digging deeper into the nuances of that category. Always be asking yourself if it is obvious what button someone needs to click next to get the information they are seeking.
• Provide Navigation Options – Your website visitors differ in how they prefer to navigate a site and making them feel at home should reflect that. You should consider several options that a visitor can navigate your site. From pictures / icons on the home page to connect to the categories as well as the options being available in a traditional menu format. Some people like the visual option and others like a traditional menu tree. Making them feel comfortable means giving them the options they prefer, not making them adjust to the way your website functions.
• Make Sure It Works Equally Well on Mobile – In 2020 this should be obvious, but some sites still fall short in this area. There are estimates that over 70% of all internet traffic occurs on mobile devices. With 7 of 10 of your visitors possibly seeing the site on a mobile device, it needs to function optimally in that environment. It doesn’t make any sense to have a beautiful website on desktop that is clumsy on a mobile device. If anything, make sure the site is at its best on mobile. If not, you will find many people leaving without even looking around.

I hope that these couple tips help you to make your website a welcoming place for visitors. In addition to increasing your onsite conversions, it will also help your SEO.