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Lower Your Home Page Bounce Rate ? A Guide for Law Firm Internet Marketing

By Peter

What is your bounce rate of your home page?  Every visitor that leaves instantly is a potential client lost.

We reviewed 38 client web sites and found the bounce rate for home pages.  We then tracked the trends.  We had a ridiculously low 3% bounce rate  for wwww.robbinslawllc.com, congrats your site rocks!

Sooo….what factors determined a low or high bounce rate?

Analysis of Bounce Rate on Home Pages

1.  Flash Animation Lowers Bounce Rate
WTF?  Yeah, having a Flash animation seemed to really lower the bounce rate.  I am NOT talking about an intro at all.  We don’t create those (except for the small animation on Robbins Law).  Rather, just having some type of animation in the header graphic kept people on the page longer and led to them clicking on something on the page.  I too am utterly stunned by this, but the data does not lie – people like small Flash headers integrated into the home page that tell a story and give a clear marketing message.

Lowest Bounce Rate:  11 of top 15 sites had some type of animated photos, effects, or text.
Highest Bounce Rate:  12 of the bottom 15 sites had no animation whatsoever.

2.  Short Home Pages Lowers Bounce Rate
Go figure again, but the length of the home page directly factored into bounce rate.  Our top three lowest bounce rates all fit everything above the fold!  This means there was no scrolling involved on a standard 1024 pixel screen.  Conversely 8 of the bottom 10 sites were very long, more than 2 or three scrolls to view everything.  In general the 40 site list was clear, the shorter sites had lower bounce rates, the longer sites had higher bounce rates.

Lowest Bounce Rate:  5 of top 15 sites were short in length and 10 of medium length (i.e. 1 page scroll at most).
Highest Bounce Rate:  8 of the bottom 15 sites were long and 5 medium in length, only two were considered short.

3.  Above Fold Call to Action Lowers Bounce Rate
Did you request something from the user right away?  Was that request above the fold and clearly labeled?  If so, the sites performed better and led to lower bounce rates.  It is critical to have a call to action on each page and that call to action must be above the fold and apparent.

Lowest Bounce Rate:  11 of top 15 sites had a call to action above the fold.
Highest Bounce Rate:  10 of the bottom 15 sites had no call to action above the fold.

4.  Above the Fold Benefits Lowers Bounce Rate

Do you have a marketing message that conveys your key benefits above the fold?  Was it clear?  Those were the factors we analyzed and it was pretty evident that if the top header had a marketing message, it kept the user on the site longer.  It is also critical that you set the tone for the web site and give your key benefits right away.

Lowest Bounce Rate:  12 of top 15 sites had some type of marketing message or benefits above the fold
Highest Bounce Rate:  10of the bottom 15 sites had no benefits or marketing message above the fold.

5.  New Site Design Lowers Bounce Rates
While we did not see this as a big factor, we did notice that sites that were older tended to perform worse with bounce rate. This is due to design being outdated.  Some sites with the highest bounce rate were over 5 years old and of course need to be refreshed.  Time to call some clients!

Lowest Bounce Rate:  13 of top 15 sites were within a year old.
Highest Bounce Rate:  5 of the bottom 15 sites were over a year old

In Conclusion

1. Make an Animation on your Home Page
2. Make the Home Page Shorter
3. Make a Short Call to Action Above the Fold
4. Make your Benefits Above the Fold
5. Make a New Site if i’ts been over 3 years.

Also, check out some other articles on Bounce Rate.

• Bounce Rate the Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Full post as published by PaperStreet Web Design: SpeakOut on September 24, 2009 (boomark / email).