15 Ways to Decrease Website Bounce Rates
31 Dec

15 Ways to Decrease Website Bounce Rates

What does “bounce rate” mean?

The Google definition of bounce rate is as follows:
“Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page.”

So the lower the bounce rate the better, as this means more of your visitors are clicking through to other content on your website.

Please find below some common methods which can be useful when lowering your bounce rate and keep visitors engaged on your website.

1. Page loading time

Speed is crucial. Your page should take no more than about 5 seconds to load if possible. Do not clutter your page with too many elements that take time to load and optimize your images and code.

2. Audio Effects / Music

It’s a fact that many users will immediately exit your site if they start hearing something they don’t like (or can’t see). Although in some websites music and audio would be appropriate, in general you better off it. That being said; remove anything that automatically starts making noises such as soundtracks, auto-starting videos and similar.

3. First Impact

You need a good, catching layout for you site. Your website needs to instantly portray an image of quality, and an image relevant to your product or service. Remember, you have only one shot to capture your visitor’s attention and make a good impression of your company.

4. Browser Compatibility

Make sure your Website is compatible with ALL BROWSERS (Internet explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, etc …) You never know which browser your visitor will be using, so make sure your site validates and runs smoothly on all browsers. Test in all relevant browsers. Not sure if your website is compatible with all browsers? Contseoact us about our free website evaluation report.

5. Relevant Titles and Headings

Make the information available in an easy way for your visitors. If users have been searching for “blue shirts” make sure you have a header that has that information, for instance “See our collection of Blue Shirts”, otherwise they may leave immediately your site. Another way to make things easier would be including a Search box somewhere in your site.

This will help users to find what they are looking for by typing a keyword. Not sure how to install a search in your website? We can help! Contact us about adding searching features for your site

6. Image Optimization

Provide as many descriptive image resources as needed. Chose well, design a powerful image or collage of your products since that can give an instant idea of what it is all about, what it looks like, how to use it and where to use.

7. Stay above the fold

First of all, what does that mean? Above the fold means what your visitors see when they come to your site without having to scroll down the page.

It’s a simple and powerful tip. Keep the key information or the product you are selling above the fold. Users who don’t see what they are looking for right away might leave your site immediately.

8. Keep it Simple

The rest of the page should be simple, uncluttered and with few navigational choices to be made. Remember, you already made your point Above the Fold (item 7), so if you need to add more information why not creating a link add to cart, read more, sign up, see how it works, and then link to an additional page?

This is not only a good CALL-TO-ACTION but also a way to have your page clean and effective.

9. Communicate your message well

Communicate well to your audience. Revise your information over and over to make sure the message is being passed the right away. Consider whether your audience is young, teen years, older, creative, skillful, computer literate, professionals, consumers etc. Make sure you do a spelling check through all pages of your site!

10. Cross Selling Products and Services

Just because you don’t have a certain product temporarily in stock, that does not mean you can’t have a cross selling products area with other options and related items! You never know your visitor might buy an alternate product, different color, different service that relates, etc … If you have an ecommerce website and need help adding cross selling products to it please visit our ecommerce features page or get a free website quote

11. Eliminate distractions

Make sure you eliminate elements placed in your page that are causing distractions, such as automatic popups, text-scrollers, animated gifs, spinning logos or cluttered flash.

12. Navigation Tabs

This is also crucial; the position of the menu in your site has to be visible at all times and easy to navigate through. Add the most important navigation tabs first. For instance, some visitors might want to read about the company, the owner, check your phone number and address for legitimacy and so on.

It is also a common practice to have the main company logo link to the site homepage, so the visitor always have a way to return to the main page regardless.

13. Keep your site fresh

Make changes on your website often. Nobody likes to visit a website that has information posted 5 years ago.

14. Add Customer Testimonials

Use as many testimonials as possible. Call your clients, ask them to provide their feedback about your service or products and obtain their permission to use on your website. Visitors often like and might benefit from reading other customers positive experiences with your company.

15) Inquiry Forms and Contact Forms

Make sure your forms only ask the essential information you need to operate. Do not make all fields required (unless really needed). The easier and quicker to fill out the better!

Not sure where to start?
Call us for a free website evaluation and get a free website report to help you get started!

Open Source Development: Freedom of Choice
31 Dec

Open Source Development: Freedom of Choice

CIOs across the world are choosing open source technologies to efficiently increase business growth, optimize system performance and reduce costs. Open source gives IT executives the opportunity to innovate and add value to their business without the problems faced with the traditional software products.

Advantages that open source offers:

Take control of your software

Open source software gives you the power to control your software’s code. You have the right to modify the code to suit your requirements and control the budgets that you want to spend towards it. Unlike proprietary software, where the vendor controls your code, upgrades and budgets — with open source software, you control the upgrade process and can choose to decide which bugs to fix and when.

Escape Vendor Lock-in

Disappointment and dissatisfaction with a vendor’s support and service is a reality for all IT managers. Inability to customize software to meet your requirements or support your needs, further increases the frustration. Open source gives you the freedom to choose your preferred vendor giving you the flexibility.

Lower cost of ownership

There are no license fees for an open source software, reducing annual license fees cost to zero. There is zero cost of scale, because open source doesn’t require additional licenses as the installation grows.The only spends are towards the support for your software that ensure reliability and reduces running cost by at least 80%.

Greater Security & Quality

Open source software is available publicly. A large amount of developers globally contribute and analyze the code making it more secure and constantly increasing the quality. The peer review process drive excellence in design.

Continuity

It is possible that a proprietary software company shuts shop or decides to discontinue services for a software. With it goes the support and the future of the software. Open source software is not dependent on a single entity and gives users the advantage of the community. Any developer can choose to take up the software and continue from where it stopped.

WebsiteFlix’s commitment

Commercially supported by WebsiteFlix and backed by a global community of developers, WebsiteFlix promises transparent sharing of knowledge and continuous innovation. Our product teams commit code and bug fixes regularly to the open source community.