If they’ll click once, they might click again—but they have to have something to click.
In a recent audit of a gym’s website, we found a relatively small amount of clicks over a three-month period. The vast majority of clicks indicated existing clients were signing in for classes. That’s a good thing, but it’s not going to generate growth.
A small but not insignificant number of clicks went to the business’s recently launched nutrition website, and a slightly smaller amount went to its Instagram page. These are good things as well: They indicate people want to know more about other aspects of the business and see what the business is up to on social media.
Overall, the number of clicks on the site was very small. In fact, the link with the seventh-highest number of clicks only had seven in 3 months. Worse, the link was directing people to an unrelated site from which they would not soon return.
So what’s the problem?
In the case of this particular site, the problem was a lack of regular content and a lack of things to do. It wasn’t “sticky.” Existing clients knew exactly where to go to make appointments, and that’s all they did because there was little else to do. Referrer data suggests prospective clients and visitors likely entered via search engine but didn’t do much, again because the site didn’t offer them compelling reasons to click around.
We found a clue buried in the click stats when we expanded the YouTube list—26 total clicks—to see the exact breakdown. In the previous week alone, 18 people had clicked to watch a recently posted video. That would have made the piece of content the fourth most popular click on the site in the last three months—and it had only been out for a week. This result was clearly generated by a custom landing page the client had created to service visitors coming from Instagram.
We had the gym owner run an experiment: The gym published a free recipe, and we featured it with a clickable button embedded in the daily workout post—a popular page, but also a dead end. The result: 6 clicks in less than 12 hours. That means 6 people who came to see the day’s workout were motivated by the button to interact with the site and learn more about the business. With other unpaid posts to social media, the recipe was viewed 54 times in less than 24 hours, creating a noticeable spike in traffic.
Here are three very simple steps you can take right now to start making your site stickier:
1. Use your analytics program to see which links people are clicking on your site, and review the content that’s generating those clicks. If you’re publishing regularly, use these click stats to help you create media that’s similar to your most popular content. If you aren’t regularly creating content, it’s time to start—and we can help you do that.
2. Start linking your content together. Posting a blog? Add a button to a popular video. Posting a video? Add a link to a free piece of great content people can download in exchange for joining your mailing list. Posting a workout of the day? Add a link to a new piece of content, a new program or service you’re offering, a very popular old piece of content, etc. Start creating a web on your site so one page leads to another.
In two simple steps, you’ll ensure you get more eyes on your content, which builds your expertise and keeps people on your site longer. If you add in some well-placed calls to action—“Sign up for our new program!”—you can use your ever-increasing expert status and traffic to generate conversions.
We also recommend you create buttons. A hyperlink on a word can get lost. A big gold button demands attention.
Like the one below.
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