Reducing Bounce Rate 6

[sirlojik]

Hi all,
In effort of reducing bounce rate on my site. Im reaching out to all of you to ask what to do to keep my members longer.

I have thought up of only,
1) free sms
2) Polling system
3)Good games

these r just my assumptions. The idea of my website is social networking. i have added the fundamentals of social networking, now im stuck on what to add on to make it better.

Please share some practicle suggestions

btw,

http://www.veepiz.com

is the site.

 

[johnwm]

1. I'm sure I read some research recently that indicated that every compulsory field in a registration form will half the number of sign-ups. It's really difficult to see why you feel entitled to 9 separate pieces of info from me just so I can log in to your site.
2. You still don't appear to have tackled the validation issues that were pointed out to you in thread215-1583724 which means that your visitors may well see different results depending on their browser and you may well have issues with search engines.
3. Your layout is crowded with no margins/padding so text is hard up against its container edge (hard to read)
4. Your colour scheme doesn't show much contrast so will be hard to read, especially for visually impaired.
5. As I can't see the internal pages (see item 1) I can't check spelling and grammar, but the wording of your question suggests that you should carefully review your whole site to any errors like the ones in your posts here.
6. I also notice that you now have asked 40 questions, but only had 5 valued answers. If you are not getting the answers you need, read FAQ222-2244: How to get the best answers to improve your questions. If you are getting valuable answers, read FAQ222-2244: How to get the best answers to see how to recognise them.
7. Use Firefox with the web developers extension and the Yslow extension to see the causes of your slow loading and very 'bitty' presentation with sections jumping around as the page loads.
8. Put some actual content on the site rather than just filler.

If you want the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first.
'If we're supposed to work in Hex, why have we only got A fingers?'
Drive a Steam Roller

 

[sirlojik]

. I'm sure I read some research recently that indicated that every compulsory field in a registration form will half the number of sign-ups. It's really difficult to see why you feel entitled to 9 separate pieces of info from me just so I can log in to your site.

Very true. Thanx a lot for this Info. It makes complete sense.

2. You still don't appear to have tackled the validation issues that were pointed out to you in thread215-1583724: veepiz.com which means that your visitors may well see different results depending on their browser and you may well have issues with search engines.

I didn't have internet at the time, so i downloaded offline validators. which gave me the thumbs up....w3c found more...will work on this.

4. Your colour scheme doesn't show much contrast so will be hard to read, especially for visually impaired.

I have had a big debate with my members about this. Its almost inpossible to get a compromise. some like the traditional(original colour scheme similar to facebook), some like the new colour sceme. John, if it were up to you, what colour scheme would you use to meet 80% of member expectatio or preference?

8. Put some actual content on the site rather than just filler.

John, like facebook. This is supposed to be the 'splash page'. I was in conflict, If i put lots of content....i bloat the intro and the purpose of the site is lost...thus more bounce rate.
If i try to reduce content and convey the purpose of the site directly. I compromise my Onpage SEO. Im still in conflict as i speak.

. I also notice that you now have asked 40 questions, but only had 5 valued answers. If you are not getting the answers you need, read FAQ222-2244: How to get the best answers: How to get the best answers to improve your questions. If you are getting valuable answers, read FAQ222-2244: How to get the best answers: How to get the best answers to see how to recognise them.

Actually, i asked 1 question. "how to reduce bounce rate?". I thank you for constructive critism but wonder, If i apply everything ive been told. will that improve the bounce rate?

 

[audiopro]

I am with John on his appraisal of your site but I would just like to add some additional comments.

A visitor comes to your site -
1 - looking for information about Africa - there is none.
2 - looking for some interesting reading - there is none
3 - Arrived there by accident - nothing of immediate interest

If something on your site has whetted a visitors appetite, they may just sign up but your site just doesn't tempt people in.

Keith

http://www.studiosoft.co.uk

 

[sirlojik]

okay, lemme use facebook as an example. when you go to their landing page, what tempts u to join. Is it the fancy colour?

they have nothing.....yet all of u might be members. You've got to join make friends and voila, you see the potential of the site. Im starting to see, comments on this forum stay on the surface.

 

[audiopro]

Most people get to Facebook, knowing what it is and what it does.

This is because large sums of money have been spent promoting the site.

If you have the same advertising budget as Facebook then your site should be a big success.

Keith

http://www.studiosoft.co.uk

 

[Wullie]

I have to echo the above comments about your site, it just seems really busy for no reason.

The things that I noticed were:

1) Welcome visitor, you're currently not signed in, If you're not yet a member,
Please register. If you've forgotten your password, click here.

The above seems like a lot of text for no benefit. What's wrong with something like:

Welcome, please log in or register.

Remember password should be somewhere at the form, not in the above sentence. You could even consider only showing it when they attempt to login and fail.

2) Your search box is absolutely huge, it should be about quarter of the size it is.

3) If I need to login before I can search, why can I see it when I am logged out? Hide the search box until I am logged in and can use it.

4) To view results from this login, view the top-right handside of this page. Thank you.

This may just be me, but this sentence seems out of place and I don't even fully understand what it means. Again it clutters the page for no apparent reason.

5) On the top login form you have Keep alive but on the next form you have Keep me signed in. Pick one and stick with it on all forms, there is no reason to have different text meaning the same thing.

6) You are currently not signed in. You will have to sign in to view this page.
If you don't have an account with us, it is advised you register. If you have forgotten your password then click here to have it emailed to you. You can login by filling in the form to the top right side of this page.

This again seems like a huge paragraph for no reason. What is wrong with something like:

You must sign in above to view this page. If you don't have an account with us, please register below.

7) Returned 0 results of keyword: aaaa. from Shops
Showing Page 1 of 0
No Adverts to show. To Place an Ad, click Place Ad
Showing Page 1 of 0

The Showing Page 1 of 0 doesn't need to be shown if there are no results.

8) The side navigation doesn't need to be shown on the home page, I can't do anything with it if I am logged out so why show me the options?

9) Veepiz helps you share and connect with people in your life. Make a great profile that is all about you, find your friends, meet new friends, chat, flirt, find jobs, sell or buy stuff, advertise your business or talents, share photos, participate in educative forums and a lot more.

Firstly, copying any text word for word from a massive site like Facebook is never a good idea, even if it is just a single sentence. You have gone a step worse though by adding loads of redundant text to bulk it up and make it harder to read without actually providing me with any decent information. I don't need to know everything your site does in a single sentence, I just need to know the basics and the first sentence that you got from Facebook does that perfectly.

10) Security Issues
Veepiz strongly believes in originality and privacy. This is the sole reason your information is only viewable by your friends unlike other social networking sites.

Security Issues is a bad term to start with. Are you telling me you have security issues? That's what I thought when I first saw that heading. Taking your privacy seriously would be a bit more fitting.

11) This is the sole reason your information is only viewable by your friends unlike other social networking sites.

I would seriously think about changing this whole idea. A massive part of the meeting new friends, getting found through search engines and catching people's attention is from stumbling across a profile and reading it. Your site will never get any of that if the user is forced to keep their profile private. I know people who want to share their profile with anyone that wants to read it, that's why they have them. Give the user the option of showing or hiding their profile and remove that text from the homepage.

12) Popular Walls - To me, this section goes against your privacy comment. You give me full privacy by hiding my profile but then show a link to it on the home page to strangers? If there is no way to view their profile without being their friend, why do I need to know who has the most popular profile?

13) Latest African News - Right now I see 10 news articles on your home page which is far too many. Why not have 4 articles? Do you expect many people to come to your networking site so they can read the African news on your homepage? It just seems to be there to bulk up the content, again for no reason.

14) I would personally do away totally with your latest members section because it can work against you. If your site gets busy, you will have to cache the database queries rather than hitting the database each time. In this situation your latest members would be showing out of date information and on the other hand, if your site is no busy then do you really want me knowing that your last new visitor was 6 weeks ago?

15) The subject doesn't appeal to me but as audiopro said, even if it did there is nothing of interest on your home page to pull me to register. Why not tell me why I should use your site? Maybe my friends are using it? Maybe I could import my friends list easily?

16) I agree with johnwm about the registration form. There is nothing wrong with asking for that information but don't do it on the homepage. Ask me for the very minimum information you actually need to create the account, then after you have me registered you can ask for more information.

Overall, I just think the home page looks like you've tried to add too much information without sitting down and thinking "What information needs to be there?". Your home page is valuable real estate and you need to use the space wisely.

Im starting to see, comments on this forum stay on the surface.

The surface is all your visitors will see and the comments by the above posters are reflecting exactly that. You said you are getting a lot of bounce visitors so the above posters have responded based on their initial reactions to your home page.

Forget adding anything else to your site, you need to get the visitors into signups and the way to do that is to use your home page to sell registration to them. If I don't see the benefit of registering, I am never going to get to use any fancy addons you built into the members area.

Hope this helps,

Wullie

The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails. - John Maxwell

 

[mmerlinn]

On top of every thing else said above, the home page loads slowly on this Comcast connection. Visitors on dial up would leave long before your page would show.

All the more reason to get rid of the clutter on your home page. If your home page information does not serve a useful purpose (getting people to click through) then it should not be there.

Once you have the visitors on your site elsewhere, slower loading pages may be tolerated, but never on your home or landing page.

mmerlinn

http://mmerlinn.com

"We've found by experience that people who are careless and sloppy writers are usually also careless and sloppy at thinking and coding. Answering questions for careless and sloppy thinkers is not rewarding." - Eric Steven Raymond

Poor people do not hire employees. If you soak the rich, who are you going to wor

 

[BillyRayPreachersSon]

1)

Veepiz strongly believes in originality and privacy.

Originality? Like copying text verbatim from Facebook, you mean? :-

Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.

Veepiz helps you share and connect with people in your life.

That's hardly an advert for originality.

2) There is a weird box sitting under the top nav, overlapping the search box. Inside it is a link that says 'close'. Clicking this link removes the box and the link, but nothing else happens. Why bother having a box you can close if it serves no other purpose?

3)

You are assured to find lots of useful material about Africa on Veepiz.

While the word 'assured' can indeed mean 'certain', 'sure', etc, it really doesn't sound right in that sentence. I'd use a different word (like 'sure' or 'certain').

4) I'll echo John's 3rd comment: Your layout is crowded with no margins/padding so a lot of your content is butted right up against its container edge. This looks bad and unprofessional.

Dan



Coedit Limited - Delivering standards compliant, accessible web solutions

Dan's Page [blue]@[/blue] Code Couch:

http://www.codecouch.com/dan/

Code Couch Tech Snippets & Info:

http://www.codecouch.com/

 

[kjv1611]

sirlojik,

johnwm was pointing to your entire tek-tips history, not just this one question. Look here:

http://www.tek-tips.com/userinfo.cfm?member=sirlojik

To sum up a lot of what has been said, think of it this way: Less is more.

The Facbook landing page is much simpler than your site. Also, as suggested, it offers more contrast. Personally, if I looked at your site (as is) any longer, it would give me a headache. That's not personal, it's honesty. Why would people want to look at a site that makes them feel sick? You could do some research into colors in art. That would help in that area. There are some pretty standard, basic, rules that have been around for a very long time - I've no idea how long, but they just sorta make sense, and I know it's been longer than 20 or 30 years.

Here's some basics:
1. Continuity - Have colors/shapes/designs that will guide you throughout the work (art or web, whatever someone looks at), rather than the viewer having to force themselves around.
2. Contrast - especially with text. If no contrast, it'll be awful difficult to read.
3. Different colors tend to give the same "feelings" to people just b/c of the way we're all built. Sure there are differences, but this is generally true: Red makes people feel more hot, agitated, angry perhaps, maybe worried. Blue tends to have a cooling/calming effect. The colors on your site could be tweaked a little to give the same color scheme if you wanted, but perhaps lean towards a different portion of the color spectrum.. that might help a little.
4. Don't have things too busy. It tires the eyes at best, and causes headaches at worst. Not many folks WANT to get a headache just from viewing something.
5. Consistency - make sure the chosen colors make sense together. Whether in your particular context, or else in general.
6. Focus - Well, what is the focus of the site? At first glance, it's just a big mess, honestly. Nothing seems to come out and grab your attention. If you want to keep attention, you've first got to go out and grab it.

If you want to consider checking out a CMS for handling the technical side of things, you could check out Drupal, phpBB, Joomla, Wordpress, or others. You could look at

http://www.cmsmatrix.org/

for one instance, and another is

http://php.opensourcecms.com/.

The 2 sites offer lots of info on various different free and open source CMS products available on the web. They give reviews, links, etc.. Of course, you can see for yourself as well. You may be using a set CMS that you think will work well, I don't know It's just another suggestion. You can generally try anything like that locally as well, without even touching your current site. If you're running Windows, you can install a WAMP or XAMP package, and do local installs of the different CMS products, build small test/sample sites to see what you think locally... then run a test of it on the web server, and see what you think first... then get some other feedback - here, or from your current users, other friends, whatever..

Okay, I'll hush now.

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[sirlojik]

I Thank you all for this information. I have already started applying most of the changes ive been told. Some changes will take time to implement. The site also validates with no errors.

As for the 'catchy' info for new customers......im going to sit down and think up these words clearly then update.

Also, as for layout......this will take time for me to fully implement across all pages.

I have also applied a single sign in solution to prevent many of you having to manually sign in....

Please take a look at the site again to see my progress.

As for any bad comments ive had about the board...im sorry. Sometimes it gets frustrating trying to make something good in you eyes but turns out negative to others.

Please review..

http://www.veepiz.com

 

[audiopro]

A fresh pair of eyes looking at something you have developed is always a good thing.
You know the site from the ground up so your objective viewpoint is slightly biased. I use family and friends to test my websites as they are users rather than authors.
They don't test every link but just give me feedback on the feel and useablity of the site.
You can't always rely on the client either, to know what they want. I have lost count of the number of jobs I have done where the client has been very strict about layout etc. only to change the design completely when he sees it in the flesh.
There is wealth of experience on here who like to help but they will pounce on things which are totally wrong, quite right too.
Nice to see you have included links to some external content but open the external content in a new window, otherwise the visitor may never return to your site.

Keith

http://www.studiosoft.co.uk

 

[kjv1611]

sirlojik,

Something you seriously should check into, I think, is this:

Now when I tried to go to your site, using Firefox 3.6, I'm getting the message:

Reported Attack Page!

This web page at

http://www.veepiz.com

has been reported as an attack page and has been blocked based on your security preferences.

Attack pages try to install programs that steal private information, use your computer to attack others, or damage your system.

Some attack pages intentionally distribute harmful software, but many are compromised without the knowledge or permission of their owners.

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[Wullie]

I see the same. Here's some more info on it:

Safe Browsing
Diagnostic page for

http://www.veepiz.com

What is the current listing status for

http://www.veepiz.com?

Site is listed as suspicious - visiting this website may harm your computer.

What happened when Google visited this site?

Of the 2 pages that we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 1 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time that Google visited this site was on 2010-02-28, and the last time that suspicious content was found on this site was on 2010-02-28.

Malicious software is hosted on 1 domain(s), including zief.pl/.

This site was hosted on 1 network(s) including AS8972 (PLUSSERVER).

Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?

Over the past 90 days,

http://www.veepiz.com

did not appear to function as an intermediary for the infection of any sites.

Has this site hosted malware?

No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days.

How did this happen?

In some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which would cause us to show the warning message.

Next steps:

* Return to the previous page.
* If you are the owner of this website, you can request a review of your site using Google Webmaster Tools. More information about the review process is available in Google's Webmaster Help Centre.

Wullie

The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails. - John Maxwell

 

[mmerlinn]

I get the same message that KJV1611 gets. You need to fix that or no one will ever visit your site.

mmerlinn

http://mmerlinn.com

"We've found by experience that people who are careless and sloppy writers are usually also careless and sloppy at thinking and coding. Answering questions for careless and sloppy thinkers is not rewarding." - Eric Raymond

Poor people do not hire employees. If you soak the rich, who are you going to work for?

 

[sirlojik]

I solved this with google and badware.org. They reviewed the site and found it clean......its now safe.

It all arose from a virus called win32/Virut...all webmasters be aware. It places a hidden iframe within ur html and php files...The call it iframe injection attack........i checked all my code and removed the instances...

and asked google to review me....now im back......i didnt think viruses cud be a pain to this extent......anyway site is safe again

 

[audiopro]

Out of interest, how does the virus get into the HTML?
Does it occur on the server or the local machine?

Keith

http://www.studiosoft.co.uk

 

[Wullie]

Out of interest, how does the virus get into the HTML?
Does it occur on the server or the local machine?

I don't know about this specific exploit but normally it could either be the user's machine is already exploited or the server itself has been compromised. If it's the server, removing the code is a quick fix but certainly won't work long term.

Hope this helps

Wullie

The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails. - John Maxwell

 

[kjv1611]

Well, I just glanced at it again, and the site definitely loads quicker than before, and it doesn't seem quite so jumbled as before.

One thing that might help as well, I think, is separating the search and login blocks - either to one side or the other, or something else. It seems having 2 different functioning text boxes/box groups that close together could cause extra confusion and frustration that just isn't necessary. If you can't find a good spot for the login blocks, there's nothing wrong with a link leading to a different page for login.

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[audiopro]

I always prefer a site login to be on the first page and when you try to access the Social Network menu, it leads to an additional login section appearing.
I would suggest you put the login section in the left column of the first page only.


You still have external links openingup in the main page.


Keith

http://www.studiosoft.co.uk