The Contest-You Cant Leave Til Its Over

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Here are some of my favorites: Always remember that the effort you put in determines the results you get out. Bad content will turn visitors away just like bad design will. And as I already mentioned with content, another element you should consider is how visual your site is. I do that for a reason. Websites that relied on visual engagement in addition to copy saw their conversion rates more than double. It also reduces the risk of a hack or attack. Most importantly, you especially want to update your content frequently. According to the Kissmetrics Science of Social Timing infographic, your chance of getting more unique views and backlinks increases as you increase the frequency that you share content.

You could add a blog. You can interact with your own site by commenting on or updating old posts. Try adding images and videos when appropriate. Update your design to stay trendy. Freshen up your other content like social media, FAQs, and testimonials. It could be a more traditional coupon or discount, or it could be a free trial, whitepaper, or gift. The best offers push your visitors further into your sales funnel. I always recommend offering a clear statement of value in addition to a way for people to contact you.

Like this example from Bills. They immediately give you what you came for. They simply start by giving you the tools you need to manage your bills and debt. While getting information from your visitors is helpful to you, it could turn away a user who is simply trying to browse or learn more. Finding the right offers and timing them appropriately goes a long way in meeting the expectations of your visitor.

Give users what they expect. Make sure that your domain name, website header, and every last drop of content is relevant to the focus of your website. So, keep it real. Let your site be what it is and advertise it as such. Users want websites that make a lasting impression,. People need to be able to use your website, not just experience it.

There are actually five different elements you can look for to establish and assess usability on a site that your visitors will enjoy. The first element of a good user design is access and availability. It also means that elements like broken links or lack of mobile re sponsiveness are playing a part in how someone experiences your website.

The screen is flexible and adjusts when you minimize or maximize the window. And this makes sense. You would expect a site like this from a social media platform that has exploded to a user base of more than 2 billion. None of this has c ome by accident. Facebook has constantly been concerned with ease of access and constant availability as a part of its brand. But beyond accessibility and availability, you should also be able to provide a clear experience of your brand.

You should be able to create a website that has a single focus. It should have a clear and unwavering design and purpose that your audience can jive with. One way to achieve this is to keep things simple. Take Samsung as an example. Their site immediately focuses on the important aspects they want you to see. To take it a step further, they also try to make you feel like their site is familiar when you scroll down and see this:. The font is the same.

It provides a clear user experience that minimizes distractions and bounces. Beyond clarity, the site also helps you learn about the product. This is largely due to the fact that it follows some pretty classic design patterns that many major websites and brands use. All of this is possible because this site is easy to learn. Another powerful option is social proof — putting customer reviews right on your homepage. Take the Pebble smartwatch brand , for example.

Before they sold their company to Fitbit, they had to compete against Apple in the emerging smartwatch market. But, by being proactive about displaying the versatility, battery life, and durability of their product, they were able to develop a loyal customer base and even break some Kickstarter records. Convey that visitors can trust you, and customers will use your site as a reliable source of information.

Again, Pebble is a great example, as they were a leading brand at a time when smartwatches were still a risky concept. By innovating and creating useful features like speech to text, always-on watch faces, and third-party apps, they were able to cater to the crowd of individuals disillusioned by the Apple Watch.

They listened to what their users wanted and poured all of their resources into creating an innovative and user-friendly product. Content will change as necessary, navigation will condense, and images and spacing will adjust, but the usability of the site is preserved. And with mobile conversion rates only lagging 0. It will work exactly the same across all devices, and it will even accommodate for lacking elements like Flash on some tablets.

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Navigation will be simpler, images will appear smaller, and your static content will remain the same. But the key difference is that it will look good on a tablet or smartphone. The point is that transitioning to a responsive design will help build trust, increase usability, and lower bounce.

All of the other elements rely on a clean format, which you can achieve with a responsive or mobile site. If your website is a versatile, user-friendly platform, your visitors will want to stick around to see what you have to say. Boost your usability by keeping runtime high, site design clear, and learnability to a maximum.

As long as you stay clear and relevant, your bounce rate will be low and your brand trust will be high. And remember to keep your site either responsive, mobile-friendly, or both. It sounds weird, right? We naturally want to give people all the information so they can make an informed decision. But in reality, this hardly ever works. Less really is more. How do you think information should be organized? How can you reduce friction from start to finish?

The 15 Second Rule: 3 Reasons Why Users Leave a Website

Trying to look at your site with fresh, unbiased eyes will help you streamline navigation and reduce the headache a new user might experience. You can also help a visitor navigate your site by directing them with internal links in your content. According to Yoast, internal linking helps Google understand your site. And as you can see in their WordPress plugin, they provide a red flag for a lack of internal links: First of all, you need to source your material and have a good content strategy.

You can expect that your competition has refined and optimized their CTAs. If you want to stack up to them, you have to include well-researched value propositions that appeal to your audience. Businesses with no CTAs are letting leads slip right through their fingers. Just imagine those bounce rates. In addition to calls to action, internal linking, and proper navigation, you should also consider how easy it is to accomplish something on your site. This is another area where bad page design can hurt conversions if you let it.

It makes it so that you can purchase something immediately. If you want to provide easy navigation and lower your bounce rate, then make it easy for visitors to accomplish the tasks they came to do. The key here is perfecting your presentation. So why do you serve your products on a metaphorical paper plate? This example uses a few powerful presentation aspects that you can start implementing in your own designs to help show visitors what they can do.

The first element at play here is a cognitive bias known as the Anchoring Effect. The next element you want to consider is how you can use presentation to gain trust and push your visitor a little further into the sales funnel. You can also look for other elements like trust badges, certifications, social media buttons, testimonials, and even clear and concise descriptions. This makes sense for a lot of reasons. One reason is that a crowded pricing package could simply cause confusion.

This reassures your visitor and encourages them to take a longer look at your services. Using elements like strikethrough pricing, temporary bundles, or even a countdown timer are good ways to put a little added pressure on a visitor. By using the strikethrough pricing, they give off the idea that these prices will be going up soon.

You feel like it may never come again. HelpScout shared a powerful example that showed how Apple could have gone about marketing their iPod both effectively and poorly. Take some time to consider how clearly you display value. Even one slip could be bumping your bounce rate a little higher and sending customers to the competition.

Your call to action should be blatant and easy for the user to achieve. For example, if you want users to subscribe to your mailing list, then make that your call to action and the central focus of your page.

Why you should care about your bounce rate

Capture their name and email quickly. Also take time to clean up your sites navigation, internal links. Make your site easy to use. Even small improvements can go a long way in improving bounce rates. Simplicity causes your website to stand out in a very good way. Trust is critical online.

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Almost anyone can create a website, including criminals. Now, I am assuming that your website is legitimate and your intentions are benevolent. But the question is whether or not you are clearly communicating this fact to your target audience and helping them know you better. This is a legitimate site that you may have never heard of before. According to Alexa, the average user stays on this website for 15 minutes when this screenshot was taken.

So, how do websites like this, without national or international name recognition, generate real trust? Third-party validation tells users that your website is secure. What matters is that a user sees third party validation—validation from an outside source. Furthermore, the website was connected to social media. The sidebar was linked to Facebook, Google, and Twitter.

These names are recognizable and demonstrate that the website has nothing to hide. As a result, it was clear that the user could contact someone and get the help they need. It also implied that the website or, those who were behind it wanted to help the user. An SSL is a security protocol that establishes encrypted links on your site.

Your customers and Google will know you have this set up because your http address should change to https. Finally, notice that visitors could log in or sign up for a membership account in the nav bar. This communicates that the website has a following or community associated with it. It feels secure, validated by community members, although no contact with fellow community members has actually occurred for the new visitor. Customer reviews are also a great way to build trust fast, particularly in ecommerce. Beyond these little trust-building touches, you should also be aware that your audience is looking for a certain type of personality to be on display when deciding whether or not to trust your brand.

Millward Brown found in a world-wide examination that desirability and trustworthiness were the overall characteristics that people looked for in an online presence. A company based in the U. Look at a brand like Beats by Dre. They speak to an athlete and in-motion crowd. But you need to take genuineness a step further in some instances because there are a lot of websites that undermine their voice with one little addition to their site. Depending on your site, even one batch of ads could drive away a visitor and raise your bounce rate.

And this is important because across the board, 82 percent of U. Those sites may be unable to get rid of ads altogether, especially if they act as a sort of financial flotation device for the company. A little judicious placement can still go a long way in building trust. These ads pay out based on clicks, not impressions. That means that only clicks will net you any money. Do you want to know the average click-through rate for display ads?

These stats are even more insightful when you consider just how many visitors and clicks you would need in order to actually make money off of the ads on your website. The chances of you actually succeeding with less than adequate resources and with no true way of generating consistent pageviews and clicks makes the situation even more dire. These website ads will just undermine your ultimate goals and prevent you from making true conversions via your website.

Smart Blogger gave a fantastic reminder that banner ads can kill conversion, distract your visitors, and just make you look sleazy. But enough about ads. Have you ever gone to a website in a really quiet place only to have a video start blasting at full volume? But his point is spot on. No one wants to click onto a site and immediately start being sold to.

Statista reported a spike in data breaches between and And almost two-thirds of hacked sites could be compromised for an extensive period of time before anyone even notices. Think about what it meant for Vogue though. They had to clean it up, secure the site, and then continue on like it had never happened. But it did happen. It was live, and people even recorded it. The mad scramble to clean that up plus the missteps that Equifax made in the aftermath created an enormous controversy and more than a few class-action lawsuits. Put recognized validation symbols on your site, and by all means, be accessible to users through social media and your website.

Additionally, keep your online personality in check with the expectations of your customers. Your brand relies on finding the right words to say at the right time. Boost trust and keep attention by staying away from intrusive online advertising or autoplay videos. And keep your site updated and hack-free.

You should orchestrate everything you do to impress, inspire, and motivate your audience to a sale. The crazy part of this is that not so long ago, the crazy colors, logos, layout, and popups we all thought were helpful were actually sinking our first impressions and driving visitors away.

Even worse, a bad first impression can drive away a visitor for good and leave your bounce rate startlingly high. You can have the perfect site, good navigation, and all the bells and whistles. Once you know these facts, you can dig a little deeper and try to speak to the mindset of your audience. Wooden "Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down. Kettering "The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea.

Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone.

This is the way to success, that is way great spiritual giants are produced. The time will never be just right. Bedford "After every difficulty, ask yourself two questions: Get on with living and loving.

4. Visitors Leave Your Site if They Suspect You Aren’t Being Genuine

You don't have forever. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice. They will never live up to your expectations. Don't over-analyze your relationships. A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness. Buscaglia "For success, attitude is equally as important as ability. Banks "Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost legendary. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Perseverance and determination alone are omnipotent. The more they succeed, the more they want to succeed, and the more they find a way to succeed. Similarly, when someone is failing, the tendency is to get on a downward spiral that can even become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. That night, everyone sleeps well, but it is not revealed whether Jerry or George won.

Marla is in bed with Kennedy, having finally lost her virginity to him. Kenny Kramer claimed that there actually was a contest in which David and some friends of his took part, although he did not initially want to take part because he thought he could not win it. David won the contest.

The original script was not revealed until the night before the cast read-through. Estelle Harris , who played the character, had not seen Seinfeld before she auditioned. The cast and crew commented positively on the similarity in appearance between Harris and Jason Alexander , as it made it more believable that their characters could be related. Alexander's real-life mother looks similar to Harris. Rachel Sweet has a cameo role in this episode as George's cousin Shelly. She appears in the scene with George and his mother in the hospital.

There are two deleted scenes in "The Contest". One features Joyce—the teacher of Elaine's fitness class—in the opening scene talking to Elaine, Jerry, and Kramer. The second features George and Estelle Costanza in the hospital, where the female patient has been moved to the room next door after Estelle complained about her nakedness. The first repeat of the episode gave Seinfeld its highest ratings up till that point, with a It also received only 31 complaints from viewers, despite the subject matter.

Most regular advertisers did not broadcast adverts during the show, because the series did not have good ratings at the time.

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The episode is considered by most reviewers as a success for being able to cover a controversial subject in an inoffensive manner. Jonathan Boudreaux for tvdvdreviews.

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We know what the episode is about, but the script never explicitly says it. The episode was totally inoffensive. This is the second Seinfeld episode to feature Elaine's fondness for the Kennedy family , the first being " The Baby Shower ". Seinfeld claimed that he had never heard of the song " The Wheels on the Bus " before recording the episode.

The original script featured Jerry watching the TV series Flipper. It was changed due to concerns over music rights.

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