How do you get visitors to read a second page?
Problem
- Most visitors read the page they landed on and leave, even when the site has more they would want.
- A one-page visit is the hardest kind to bring back - the reader barely saw the site.
Solution
- Read your pages per visit off your WebCounter counter, and find the posts where people stop.
- Give every post a clear next page, then price the extra views with the free calculator below.
Key points
- Going from 1.3 to 1.8 pages per visit adds 5,000 page views a month at 10,000 visits.
- That is 60,000 extra page views a year from the same traffic.
- At an illustrative R40 per 1,000 page views it is worth R2,400 a year in ads alone.
- The best next page answers the reader's next question, not the newest post.
- A reader who sees two pages has more reason to remember the site and come back.
In what one more internal link is worth we priced a single link. In what your bounce rate costs we priced the people who leave. This post is the practical side: what actually gets a visitor to click through to a second page.
What makes a reader click on
A visitor clicks on when the next page is obviously useful to them, right now.
- Link the next question, in the text - "how much will that cost?" linked where the reader is asking it.
- End every post with one clear next step - one strong link beats a list of ten.
- Group posts into a series, so each one has an obvious next and previous.
- Keep the first screen fast and clean - a reader fighting pop-ups and ads leaves before reaching any link.
Work out what extra page views are worth
Type your own numbers into the calculator below - your visits, your pages per visit and what your pages earn - and it shows what more internal links are worth to you.
Prefer a full page? Open the internal links calculator on CalcSA. More free calculators for site owners are at calcsa.co.za.
Worked example: 10,000 visits a month
A site gets 10,000 visits a month. Its pages earn an illustrative R40 per 1,000 page views in ads. Three cases for pages per visit:
- 1.3 pages per visit: 13,000 page views a month, 156,000 a year, about R6,240 a year.
- 1.5 pages per visit: 15,000 a month, 180,000 a year, about R7,200 a year.
- 1.8 pages per visit: 18,000 a month, 216,000 a year, about R8,640 a year.
- So 1.3 to 1.8 adds 60,000 page views and R2,400 a year without one more visitor.
Illustrative. The 10,000 visits, the pages per visit and the R40 per 1,000 page views are assumptions chosen to show the shape - no published benchmark was used. Your WebCounter counter shows your real pages per visit.
A year of page views from the same traffic
Page views so far over 12 months from 10,000 visits a month, at three levels of pages per visit:
- 1.3 pages per visit
- 1.5 pages per visit
- 1.8 pages per visit
Show the numbers as a table
| Month | 1.3 pages per visit | 1.5 pages per visit | 1.8 pages per visit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3 | 39,000 | 45,000 | 54,000 |
| 6 | 78,000 | 90,000 | 108,000 |
| 12 | 156,000 | 180,000 | 216,000 |
- Start with your top ten landing pages - that is where most first visits begin.
- Check where each one sends people - a dead end on a busy page costs the most.
- Do not stuff links in - five links nobody wants are worth less than one they do.
Reading your counter for this
Your WebCounter counter shows page views and visits, so you can see your pages per visit and how it moves. No counter yet? Get your free WebCounter counter - it takes a minute and costs nothing.
- Pages per visit: page views divided by visits, for the whole site and month by month.
- Top landing pages: the pages most visits start on - fix their next step first.
- After a change: compare pages per visit for a month before and a month after.
- Count bots out - crawlers read many pages a visit and flatter the number.
Sources
- The 10,000 visits a month, the 1.3, 1.5 and 1.8 pages per visit and the R40 per 1,000 page views are our illustrative assumptions - no published benchmark was used.
- Calculator: CalcSA, Internal links value.
Estimates only. What a second page is worth depends on your pages and what they earn; your own counter is the test.
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