Perhaps the key is not about getting your visitors to stay longer but to get them to click on your links/photos/videos etc. If they do, believe me friend, they will stay much longer than you expect. So capture their attention to click on something, preferably above the fold.
I agree - Good content & a very interesting way to start your article on your sticky post (page). A quotation can work quite well is my experience
I agree with this. Give the visitors, what they are looking for... what do they want from your website?
The moment your user reaches the landing page they should see a very appealing image that will strongly urge them to stay on the website, if you require the user to stay on the website longer than this image will hold attention then make the image lead to the next. For example, the main image would tell them a tiny bit about of the product and you could add a caption saying "BUT WAIT! THERES MORE!" and generally that would make the keen user scroll down, continue reading, etc. It's all about holding their attention. The people that are saying content here are incorrect, we're trying to hold the visitor on the website for longer than 5 seconds, it doesn't take 5 seconds to read good quality content, you need to get them to stay on the website first and THEN read your quality content.
Obviously you have no idea what content is. Content is words, PICTURES, IMAGES, or ANYTHING else on the page. You seem to think content is ONLY words. Before you comment you should be sure you UNDERSTAND both the question and the answer.
Try testing the load time of that page. It's possible you have an error that's causing it to load slowly. If this is the case it's likely people our leaving because the page takes to long to finish rendering. If that is not the problem try polling your visitors. When they leave popup a quick questionnaire and ask them why. Give them a discount if they answer or enter them in a drawing. The information you get will likely be more relevant then anything we can tell you.
Similarly to what derekh said, I wanted to ask you if you have tried putting a video on the landing page. Another thing I though about is whether your keywords can be associated with more than one topic. can they have a double meaning? If they have a double meaning, it could be that the searchers are looking for something else.
You could be tricking them. They may be clicking on something and when they get to your site, they're thrown off. You website could be too slow as well. Just a thought
Having an entertaining video would be one of the reason why visitors will stay longer on your Squeeze page.. and it is also possible that they will opt-in to your squeeze page.
Use great content with catchy head lines for the beginning; also it matters what kind of keywords are you targeting; if your visitors for example want to see a bunch of images, listing products but you are providing them only articles, then they may not be so interested in staying on your site.
Content is what will make visitors stay. I you have bad, spammy content then no one will stay for long, however good engaging content will keep visitors on your page long enough to click on ads.