One of the key indicators in Google Analytics is your bounce rate. This tracks visitors to your site that leave immediately and “bounce” of the site. Bounce rates average around 50-60%. A good bounce rate is 20-30%.
In order to lower your bounce rate and keep people on your site you must two two things. First, great Website content needs to pulls users into the Website and second, you must draw the right traffic into the Website. Here are a few tips for getting the right traffic.
Optimize your site for your brand and keep your online brand consistent with your offline brand. our company name should match your Website address and it should be extremely easy for users t o know who you are based on your offline promotions and find your site when they search on your company name.
Look for niches in your key word research. Avoid the trap of competitive key word searches and find many groups of niche key words.
Take advantage of Google local and optimize for local searches.
Develop an email program with great value-added content that brings people back to your Website. Send out your email newsletter once a month.
Four ideas to get better qualified traffic.
Tom
May 7th, 2008
Tom
We often come across Websites with cryptic content, navigation menus and link titles. It is just difficult to figure out what these organizations do and how they add value to their customers and other Website users.
This usually happens because organizations get so caught up on their own internal language it becomes very difficult for them to communicate about their business in any other way. It can also happen because these Website developers believe that people coming to the site will get their message. Here are a few downsides to difficult to understand Websites.
- These sites do not convert as well and have high bounce rates.
- Users have no reason to refer people to a site they do not understand.
- The site is hard to read and not convenient for users.
- Competitors can build better sites and draw away traffic.
- Search engines do not recognize the content and the site gets less traffic.
- Sales people have a difficulty referring prospects to the site.
The bottom line is frustrated users and poor results.
The solution is to hire an outside Web copy writer that can see your business through the eyes of your target market and help you develop Website copy that gets results and is a pleasure to read.
Communicate in the language of our broadest target market and avoid your internal language on the Web.
March 18th, 2008
Tom
Listen to this podcast for web trends and how these can effect your business and drive your web marketing approach.
- More than ever people are shopping on the web.
- More potential business partners/clients are using the web as a first evaluation of your company. Businesses can no longer afford to have subpar look and feel.
- Most individual web users make credibility/trust judgments based on the look and feel of your Website.
- 55-60% of shopping cart visitors abandon the cart. On average over 50% of web users "bounce" - leave a site without looking at another page. Web marketers need to take steps to make their sites "sticky".
- Web marketers must analyze their statistics and do user testing to see where users are having difficulty and correct these obstacles.
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March 3rd, 2008
Intuitive Websites
Here are a few important and growing Internet trends.
- Most people check out products on the Web before they buy from a retail store. The Websites they visit influence their retail buying decisions.
- Cart abandonment rates are still over 50% and are not improving fast enough.
- Almost all businesses use the Web when searching for vendors and business partners. Many more follow-up on business referrals with a visit to their Website.
- An organization’s Website can build or erode trust.
- Website design and development processes are not working well and there continues to be major usability and design problems with most Websites.
- Slowly, Websites are become more simple with fewer links and more white space.
- Blogs, podcasts, webinars and other forms of content distribution are growing very rapidly among consumers, but most businesses have no idea how to use these technologies or what to do with them.
- More companies are beginning to set Website ROI goals and measure their Website’s success. The vast majority of businesses still don’t do this. A lack of understanding in this area leads to no strategic Web plan or smart investing in Web marketing efforts.
These trends provide valuable insight into what is working online, how to get results for your site and where you can get ahead of your competitors.
February 22nd, 2008
Tom
Website content can easily be the lost step child of Website development. In working with hundreds of clients over the past 10 years, this is the area most neglected in Web marketing.
There are several reasons for this. Budgets are not developed properly for content development and most people do not have good writing skills. When you combine this with the fact that even good writers do not know how to write content for the Web, you get bad Website content. The content either reads like brochure content, talks too much about the company, is too flowery sounding, is made up of large blocks of text or just poorly written.
For these reasons, most Web content is not read and we see this repeatedly in usability testing. Here are a few tips to get your content read:
1. Use fewer words to say the same thing.
2. Avoid blocks of text.
3. Make use of well-written headers and bullet points.
4. Focus on benefits, not features and learn the difference.
5. Write in a language understood by visitors, not internal speak.
6. Go to Amazon.com and read books on how to write Web content.
If you ask users to read your content and give you feedback, they are likely to say that it looks fine. It is better to have them perform a task on your site or look for something, this will give you a better idea of how users scan your Website.
Content is in many cases the most important part of your Website and deserves a solid budget, proper Web writing and feedback from user testing.
February 11th, 2008
Tom
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