If you look at statistics from 2011, you’ll find that most web users stayed on a website for 10 – 20 seconds, and a site owner had about 10 seconds to gain the attention of the reader. Now, we’re hearing that you have about 7 seconds to gain the attention of a fast-paced, on-the-go person in today’s digital world.

HubSpot claims 55% of visitors spend less than 15 seconds on a website.

High bounce rates, or people leaving your site quickly, can cut into profits. You'll need to make tweaks to your website to keep users on your site for longer.

1. Users Found the Information They Need, So Entice Them with More

I’m going to assume that your website has quality information, but the problem with quality information is that it can also lead to a high bounce rate. For example, you may be providing information on Widgets, and your resource leaves no information unanswered.

If a user landed on your site from Google, they may have no other reason to stay on the page.

Perhaps this is your goal, and in this case, having a high bounce rate may not be a bad thing. But if you want the user to stay on the site longer, you can:

• List similar options at the bottom of the page.
• Edit the content with a call to action at the bottom of the page, leading to tailored content that is very relevant to the content being read.

You can also take this time to build your e-mail list.

2. Users Don’t Want to Wait for Your Site to Load, or They Were Disappointed

A site that takes too long to load leads to site abandonment. People don’t want to wait for anything. You’ll want to make sure that your site is following best practices, and this means:

• Using a CDN
• Compressing images
• Compressing scripts
• Minify CSS, HTML, etc

Google has a great speed testing tool with recommendations to follow. But let’s assume that users also expect your site to take a while to load. If you’re a tattoo artists or you run tours of the Monument Valley Safari, users are going to expect high-quality images.

If you’re a tattoo artists, landscaper or travel site, you may be able to get away with larger images and a slightly longer loading time because potential leads want to view your work - even at the cost of waiting a few seconds longer.

3. Users Being Misled to a Page, or a Technical Error Occurred

Users that are searching for a website on learning Italian, for example, may be misled in a few ways to land on the site.

• The title tag may be misleading
• The meta description may be misleading
• A link to the site may be misleading

Make sure that all of the content that is on your site matches its respective meta title and description so as to not mislead any visitors.

While you’re at it, ensure that all pages are working. Technical errors or blank pages will lead to higher site abandonment because the user isn’t able to find what they want: information.