In today’s world, it is not enough to have a beautiful website that attracts people to the page, you want people to stick around. There are things you can do with your web development to lower your bounce rate and turn visitors into clients or customers.

The faster your site loads, the better

The average internet user will give a website about three seconds to load before they move on to another site. There are a few things you can do to speed up your website:

• Take the time to optimize your larger files. You can always optimize your images and video. Keep in mind, this will make the files smaller without causing you to lose the quality.
• Lose any unused plugins. Over time the plugins that work for your website will change. As that happens, it can be easy to just leave in place the plugins that are no longer applicable. The problem with that is that all of your plugins — useful or not — need to fully load when people visit your site. If you take some time to lose any unused plugins, you can speed up your site.
• Host your site in the right place. While it may seem that all companies that offer web hosting are the same, they are not. If you are finding your website loads slowly, talk to your current host and if they cannot help you, look elsewhere. The good news is there are a lot of options available to you. You do not have to settle!

White space is your friend

That is to say, empty space is great. If you look at websites from there dawn of web development (the 1990s) you may notice that almost every space is occupied with something. This makes the website more of a chaotic mess than a useful website. Professional web designers will tell you that having some “white space” makes it easier for people to take in the information you want them to. Moreover, a website that is full of too many distractions will not have a decent conversion rate. Make it easier for people to transition from being a website visitor to a client or customer by having a clean web design.

Make it easy for people to reach out to you

At the end of the day, your web development teams is just an extension of your customer service team. Your website needs to help people interact with you. For many business owners, putting company contact information is not a top priority. This is unfortunate. Many web users can find websites where that information is incomplete or hard to find frustrating and that reflects poorly on the company. If someone has a question or concern about a product or service you offer and cannot reach you, they will find another company to do business with.

Make sure your site looks great on mobile devices

People used to access the internet only on computers. That is no longer the case. In fact, about 90% of internet shopping happens on smartphones. If your web development team has not wrapped its head around that, you need to find a new team. This is even more true if you own or manage a brick and mortar establishment such as a restaurant. It is not uncommon for people who are out and about to use their smartphone to find a good place to eat or shop. Do not miss out on this business by having a website that has not been optimized for mobile devices.

Keep your fonts and colors simple

When it comes to font, any sans serif will work better than something frilly. Keeping your color schemes and fonts more simple, it makes it easier for people who visit your website to read and understand your content almost immediately. Again, you do not have a lot of time to make your point.

Good web development can make the difference between a successful and unsuccessful website. If you take the time and implement these five tips, you will have a better chance of keeping visitors on your website for a longer period of time. This will also increase your sales.