Delivering Web Applications Quickly Across Multiple Devices

The Conversionator™ V1 N3: Weekly Insights and Ideas

Weekly Roundup of Conversion IdeasThis week I’ve compiled resources on the multi-browser world, a few quick search engine optimization fixes, an interesting multivariate testing case study,  and a bounce rate infographic which should all be helpful in optimizing your website to get 2011 off to a good start:

– Are you delivering quality web experiences to all your end users? Gomez, the Web performance division of Compuware, put together a helpful whitepaper: Thriving in a Multi-Browser World to help you learn how to deliver fast, quality web applications across the browsers and devices your customers use

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Reducing Your Bounce Rate: Why do Visitors Bounce?

You are overwhelmed with frustration as you scan across your website administration page. Business is good, but you are annoyed at your page bounce rate. It is not alarmingly high, but it is enough to be noticeable. Now you are going to spend the rest of your day wondering what the problem with your website may be.

The bounce rate is the number of visitors who exit your website almost as soon as they enter it. This number is not one of the more serious statistics pertaining to your website, but if it is relatively high, then you might need to re-evaluate some things.

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Analyze Your Bounce Rate to Increase Visitor Engagement

Your website’s bounce rate is one of the number one metrics you should be monitoring as you seek to improve your conversion rate.

Your bounce rate can give you clues about the effectiveness of your landing pages, whether your advertising campaign is targeting the right people, and whether your PPC ads are having the desired effect.

In order to capitalize on this information, however, you need to understand what your bounce rate is telling you.

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Got a High Bounce Rate? Try Fixing These 5 Things

Your website’s bounce rate is an indicator of how your website impacts viewers at first glance – do they stay or do they go?

If your bounce rate is high, take a closer look at your website design, content, and usability in order to improve your user experience. As you make changes you’ll likely be rewarded with increased conversion rates as well as reduced bounce rates.

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No Thinking Allowed

Is your bounce rate too high?  Is your conversion rate too low?  These are just a few of the website issues that can be solved by not forcing your website’s visitors to think.

The single most important thing to keep in mind when designing a webpage is that your audience is typically in a hurry, busy, and doesn’t have time to think. The more your website requires the visitor to stop and think, the less effective it will be.

Anything that serves as a distraction—this can be difficult navigation, hard-to-spot links, or a confusing search bar—will force your busy audience to think, and to become frustrated. When a visitor is frustrated, they aren’t going to be able to focus on how great your new product is. All that they will be able to concentrate on is their frustration with your website.

The solution is to focus on creating a webpage that will make people feel welcomed and confident.  The first step in being able to do that effectively is to observe how people actually use the internet. As a designer, it is easy to get wrapped up in your own artistic conception of the website and forget about the users.

The most basic concern of internet users is speed and efficiency. People don’t want to read long essays, and they don’t want to have to struggle through difficult navigations or obscurely worded links. Rather, they will scan a page and look for keywords relevant to their interests and needs.

If a page does have a lot of text, this will only make the user wary that they might be missing out on something important. Why frustrate your visitors with several long paragraphs when a well crafted sentence or two will accomplish your purpose?  Every design choice it needs to be made in the context of what a web user actually wants.  They want a website where what to do and how to do it is easy and obvious.

Want to learn more about making your website more useable?  Pick up a copy of Steve Krug’s best selling book “Don’t Make Me Think”  and join the discussion at our book club Conversations on Website Conversion on GoodReads.com .

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Bounce Rate: Keep 'Em in the Store

Tips for Improving Your Bounce RateImagine that you own a small storefront business.  If day after day, customers walked in, handled one item, and walked back out the door, you would jump to improve the experience.  But do you realize that the same thing happens regularly to online retailers and no one even notices?

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10 Ways to Lower Your Website's Bounce Rate

Bouncing off Your Website

photo by laurenatclemson

Your bounce rate is a key indicator of how well your website or landing page is working for your visitors.  Think of it as a vote against your website.  When a visitor bounces off your website, in effect they have said “No Thanks.”  Since we all want increase the popularity of our websites, here are ten great ways to reduce your website’s bounce rate and have your visitors saying “Yes Please.”

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Do You Know Your Web Analytics Jargon?

girl nerd by katybateIn the sixth grade, I knew a girl who read dictionaries for fun. While other kids ran around during recess, kicking their hacky sacks—do they still have those?—and rubbing dirt into each other’s hair, this girl sat under a tree, her eyes skimming over individual definitions and sample sentences, reveling in whatever illumination she found there.

We snickered at her and continued playing what could loosely be interpreted as kickball—not sure we made as good a use of our time as her. Last I heard, she’s running a highly successful engineering consulting firm, which leads me to a general conclusion about my own field: sometimes in the wide world of web analytics it’s good to take a second and review the terminology. And especially if you’ve never taken the time to understand the jargon bantered about by the kids down in the IT basement, here’s a crash course on the relevant techno-slang.

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