Did you know you have just 3 seconds to make an impression on a site visitor?

Literally a few seconds are enough for a visitor to leave your resource — because it’s not relevant or interesting to them. The chance to make a good impression is slim, but the good news is that the power of influence over the visitor remains in your hands, and you need to use it.

One of the main ways to keep a visitor on your site — get closer to them

This connection can be built on several levels.

First — share useful information. The idea is for the site visitor to identify part of themselves with what they’ve just read or seen.

Second — through emerging emotions. Emotions are a very powerful tool we can use to build connections with our audience.

We can share valuable information and emotions through stories

As you already know, when telling a story, you should weave information into the context — because people start to sympathise with the character and their story. Unfortunately, most non-commercial websites don’t hold a visitor longer than those 3 seconds. Instead, we try to use standard boring methods to show readers that we’re a worthwhile organisation.

Building connection with the audience

Before we talk about how to use storytelling on your organisation’s site, we need to gather as much information as possible about our audience — specifically why they visited your resource and what they’re looking for. The answers are crucial because, understanding your audience better, it becomes much easier and more accurate to create content for the site. That means you’ll be able to build the necessary connection within that 3-second window.

There are plenty of ways to get information about your site visitors — Google Analytics, Yandex.Metrica, for example. You can also run a survey to learn more about visitors. All this requires effort and time, but in the end you’ll find it was worth it.

Adding storytelling to your site

Your site’s homepage does the heaviest work compared to other pages. You need to make sure that work is done well.

Open your site right now and look at the homepage with fresh eyes. Consider whether the images and content match the visitor’s expectations. Does this information match the audience visiting your site?

If the answer to these questions is no, that’s a great reason to think about how to refresh the homepage.
Start by writing a clear audience profile and return to the question of why this person came to your site. For example, if it’s a volunteer, they might visit the site because they’re looking for where their skills or help can be useful.
Next step — think about the emotions you can evoke in this person to capture their attention. This is a great niche for applying storytelling.

Back to the volunteer example — they’d most likely want to know what your organisation does for society and specific sectors in particular. You could choose to tell a client’s story. Alternatively, the visitor might be interested in how other volunteers were able to help someone through your site. Tell stories of interesting cases from your client work.

In addition to using a compelling story on your homepage to build connection with the visitor, you can also use storytelling on “About the company” or “About us” pages. The possibilities are limitless — and you should definitely learn how to apply this method to improve your site and your bottom line.