Reduce Your Bounce Rate - A Quick Tip
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What is your Bounce Rate?

If you have a bounce rate of say 40%, then this means that 40% of the visitors that you tracked that went to your site went no further.

i.e. They did not click another link. They came, they saw, they cleared off.

Bounce rates vary from site to site and genre to genre but obviously, the name of the game is to make your bounce rate as low as possible for most people with websites that have more than one page and with a desired action to be achieved. (e.g. buy something, download something, sign up etc)

Now there are loads of factors affecting bounce rates and I want to keep this very simple as otherwise you might not get what I'm trying to say and get lost in unnecessary diversions about deep linked traffic or repeat visitors etc.

Just Do One Simple Thing.
I'm simply trying to suggest that you do at least ONE thing to reduce your bounce rate - dramatically. Put, at the top of your homepage, your IBS. That is, your Initial Benefit Statement.

Far too many people have at the top of their sites "Welcome to ABC Services Ltd" etc. This is an utter waste for a couple of good reasons.

Firstly, the first bit of text that Google "sees" on the page should contain a key-phrase that you want to be found in the search engines for because I have personally noticed that this helps hugely with search engine optimisation.

Secondly, this same headline should convey an attention grabbing benefit that the visitor will get if they continue to read the page and indeed the site.

Remember, remember, remember: Your visitors are on the web to look for information, not to read welcome messages or other generic, weak and largely ineffectual "padding".

So, you need to focus immediately on either what your website can do or what your key difference is that will be keeping your visitor retained.

If you have an ecommerce shop, do have have the largest range or cheapest prices(or most exclusive) or quickest turnaround or best customer service or best returns policy or most product experience or best track record or qualifications or highest customer satisfaction etc? (Don't be an "Also-Ran")

If you offer a services, try offering some initial tips. e.g. for an accountants' practice in Bristol, rather than :

"Welcome to ABC Services Ltd"

you could try

"6 Overlooked Investment Tax Tips for July 2009 for Bristol Entrepreneurs" etc.

i.e. It's specific, engaging and relevant. I'm sure given 5 minutes you could think of an better one. The point is that you think about it and DO it!!!!

Relevance here is key - and offers another compelling reason that you want to have multiple headlines, each aimed at a specific portion of your target market, either within the sections of your main site or on micro-sites that you own.

The whole point of an Initial Benefit Statement is that it gives the visitor a REASON to read your website.

Welcome messages are NOT a reason. When you read a newspaper, does it have a welcome message at the top? Of course not - people want to read the NEWS (benefit) that the paper offers.

I know this sounds simple and I keep harping on about it, but take a good look at your own website and ask yourself whether the first thing that people see on the homepage (and other pages too) is a specific benefit or generic waffle.

If you would like more help about how to use the web to increase customer retention, please visit http://www.mklink.com/getstarted today
or call 01454 852414.

'till next time,

Mike Knight. MKLINK Internet Marketing Tips