Archive for the ‘Landing Pages’ Category

Optimization to Decrease Bounce Rate

Wednesday, March 7th, 2012

Bounce rate refers to those people who visit a single page of your web site, quickly “bouncing” away without further exploration. If your site suffers from a high bounce rate, it means you are not grabbing your visitor’s attention, and offering something which entices them to stay. The “average” bounce rate is from 40-60%, although these numbers change according to the type of website. Informational websites have an average bounce rate of 35-55%, while blogs typically have a much higher bounce rate between 55-75%. Whatever type of website you currently have, if your bounce rate is over 60% you should definitely be concerned, and if it’s over 80%, you have a serious problem. You can easily check your bounce rate through the use of Google Analytics or a similar program.

Causes of a High Bounce Rate

There are a wide variety of reasons your users may be bouncing away from your site, and most all of them can be fixed with a little elbow grease and ingenuity.

• Slow loading pages may be a primary cause of website bounce. Our increasingly busy world dictates that users want the website they click on to load almost instantaneously, and if it doesn’t, they rarely wait around, clicking away to a site which will load quickly. Make sure your site isn’t so plastered with photos and other bells and whistles that it loads slowly on lower speed Internet connections. Also, you will need to determine whether the person who built your site might have worked in Google Chrome, failing to check the site’s performance in Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari. Quite often a site which loads perfectly in one browser may struggle in another.

• A confusing site design can also leave your visitors frustrated and, well, gone. Your website should immediately convey trust as well as your core message and should be clearly organized, making it easy for your readers to navigate. While there are many ways to lay out your landing page, the right creative layout can be critical, and will take into account your specific product or service, your sales pitch and any additional information you feel is critical to your overall business theme. Depending on your specific product or service, you may need more text content or more visual content to build your credibility. Whatever your needs and the needs of your customer, keep your design simple, and don’t force your visitors to spend their valuable time searching for what they need. Put yourself in their place, and determine how you would want to find what you needed in the most expedient manner possible. Don’t lose traffic and revenue from a poor website design and eliminate distractions so your visitors can focus on your primary message.

• Make sure you are clear about your target customer—your goal is to target those people who are most likely to convert. Many websites unwittingly attract the wrong prospects, meaning the bounce rate goes up exponentially. You will use your keywords, content writing and landing page headlines to attract your ideal prospect, and when you have done that, there will be far fewer bounces away from your site. Once you’ve clearly identified your target customer, make sure you don’t unwittingly interrupt their experience on your site, which goes back to a clear, easy to use website design.

• Ensure there is a clear call to action on your site, and that you have provided the necessary path which leads to that action. Your landing page requires a concise next step, and informational sites will have a call to action on the home page. Make sure you are using your chosen keywords in the best way possible. Many times a search for a specific term leads the user to a site which is note even remotely what they had in mind. Highly searched, generic keywords are useless in the end if you are not providing what those people are searching for, and can be a significant cause of a high bounce rate.

Lowering your bounce rate may take some hard work, but the results are well worth it. Start small, expanding bit by bit, and reviewing your results along the way.

Best Attorney Website Design Tip – Converting “Wayward Clickers” By Anchoring Your Attorney Website’s Landing Page

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

The role of your law firm’s landing page is to both echo and amplify the message that drew your potential client to the page in the first place, thus decreasing the likelihood they will bounce off the site, and greatly increasing the chances they will convert. If at all possible, your landing page should include some sort of targeted banner which follows your potential clients around as they click from page to page, taking them back to the landing page whenever they click the banner. Tests have shown that conversion rates go up dramatically when a banner is used—although it may take extra effort, it both enhances the visitor’s overall experience and leave them feeling that they haven’t just been dumped on your law firm’s website then abandoned. Your landing page is where your potential clients will get 85% of the specific services your legal firm offers, meaning that 85% of those visitors will click away if they don’t immediately see something compelling. Your landing page should be warm, welcoming, and above all, honest, and should make them want to know more.

Using a Tagline on Your Landing Page

When a potential client visits your legal website for the first time, the first question they will either consciously or unconsciously be seeking to answer in their mind is “What’s in it for me?” Because of this, it is imperative that your legal website’s landing page—the very first page seen by visitors—communicates clearly the benefits your legal firm offers. The tricky part is that these benefits must be conveyed in less than ten seconds. One way to accomplish this seemingly-impossible feat is to include a tag-line which succinctly summarizes your firm’s specialties in a very customer-oriented manner. Make sure to place this tagline so it is immediately visible even if your reader chooses not to scroll down. If you are unsure of the best way to craft such an all-important tagline, try using a solution-oriented statement which both emphasizes the value the client will receive from calling your legal firm, and describes your personal promise, using words your reader would use. This tagline is possibly the most important factor in your quest to anchor your landing page and reach the highest conversion rate possible.

Radiate Trust

Following the all-important tagline, the second concern most visitors to your website will have is “Can I trust this legal firm?”  It’s incredibly important that your landing page—as well as subsequent pages—give your readers a strong sense of credibility and quality. Many companies don’t bother placing their legal firm’s name, contact details and landline phone number as a footer on each and every page. This is crucial in reassuring your readers that your law firm is entirely legitimate. Despite the fact that we exist in a high-technology world, visitors who see a real address and a real landline phone number will find it very comforting. Include a link to your contact page, and on that page include your e-mail address, phone numbers, both cell and landline, and a physical address. (This is in addition to the footer on each page. You don’t ever want your potential clients to have to play hide-and-seek with your well-hidden contact information—they will find it incredibly annoying and will probably move on to another site). Include a link to your “About Us” page which includes background and information about your firm, the attorneys who practice, your specialties and your mission. Staff photos are great for adding a touch of humanity to your legal website, so incorporate them whenever possible. If you have client testimonials, display them prominently as this is a great trust-builder.

Converted visitors come back. Converted visitors trust you, and communicate this trust to others—they talk freely about their experiences with your law firm, share on social sites and drive more traffic to your site. Converted visitors share your links freely, and most importantly, converted visitors become faithful clients. In the overall picture, happy, converted clients are much more important than simply more traffic.

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