I usually write about SEO here, but if people are bouncing from your page (also known as a high bounce rate), then all the SEO in the world won?t help your online marketing efforts!
If you use Google Analytics for your website, you have probably noticed your bounce rate in your data. (And if you currently own a website and you aren?t using Google?s free tools, you should start.)
According to Wikipedia, Bounce Rate is defined as:
A bounce occurs when a web site visitor only views a single page on a website, that is, the visitor leaves a site without visiting any other pages before a specified session-timeout occurs?this is determined by the session timeout of the analytics tracking software.
In other words, people are not staying on your site very long.
Recently, I helped my friend Terri Poehler, a Coral Springs Realtor, go from page 10 in the Google SERPs to page 1 for the term ?Coral Springs Real Estate Agent?, but her telephone has not been ringing. She went from obscurity all the way to page one, but received absolutely no increase in business.
For her, it?s all about people landing on her page and then bouncing away. I am not a website designer, but I know what the problem with her site is: bad design. (She is currently redesigning.)
There are three things you can do to improve your bounce rate right off the bat:
1. Ugly and outdated websites cause people to leave. Beautiful websites help you win friends and influence people. People think (incorrectly by the way) that if you have a million-dollar website, you must be a million-dollar Realtor. As humans, we can?t help it.
On the other hand, you might be the best Realtor in the world, but if you haven?t changed your site since 1999, your ugly website is harming you.
I also realize that a new website can be very expensive. If you can?t afford a new website, I would recommend hiring a freelance graphic designer and telling him or her what your budget is. Maybe you will decide to spend $200 and just have your header redesigned. Or maybe you realize how important good design is and you go full deluxe and get a new site appropriate for 2012.
Either way, the importance of nice design can?t be stressed enough.
2. Slow page load times cause people to leave websites. Haven?t you ever been on a website and simply left because you were too impatient to wait for the page to load?
If your pages load slowly, it is caused by large images most of the time. Please remember: Do not go out and take photos of your listings, and upload them directly from your camera. They will be too large and will slow down your pages.
If you use WordPress, there are several plugins that will reduce your image sizes and speed up your pages, I like one called Smush.It.
3. Action! You need calls to action! Many agent websites have a call-to-action there by default- the MLS search. Which is great, but you should have more than just MLS listings to capture leads.
Some calls-to-action that work great:
Always have a contact form at the bottom of the page so that after visitors scroll through the whole thing, all the way to the bottom, they have a convenient way to contact you waiting for them. Do not rely strictly on a ?Contact Us? page to have users email you.
I hope this article helps you to improve your bounce rate, or at least gets you to start thinking about it.
Questions and comments are always welcome!
Source: http://www.zillow.com/blog/pro/2012-12-07/page-one-google-bounce-rate/
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