If you are a business website owner then you website is designed, or should be designed to enhance your business. You may be using it to:
- Sell products or services directly
- capture leads
In either case you will need visitors.
Many website/business owners concentrate entirely on this one facet of their website traffic.
But it is only one part. There are two aspects to website traffic:
- Getting it
- Keeping it -or converting it
After you've been so successful at getting the traffic what happens to it next. Well some of it just leaves. How many just decide to instantly hit the back button, and why do they.
Looks Do Matter- But How Much?
Looks are important. If your site isn't visually appealing then visitors will just turn away. How much of an impact looks have will vary considerably from site to site and the only real way of knowing for sure is by testing different designs.
Reasonable indicators are bounce rates and time on page. In general the bounce rate for a good design should be less than that for a not so good design and a good design should have a longer time on page.
Bounce Rate
When visitors arrive at your site they can do one of two things:
Go deeper into the site or leave.
If they leave without first visiting another page then they have either:
- Found what they wanted
- Not found what they wanted and didn't think they would
The percentage of visitors who leave without first visiting another page is the called the Bounce rate.
The Bounce rate gives you an indication of how well your site is engaging visitors.
Time on Page
If your content is engaging then the visitor should take time to read it. A short average time on page is usually a good indication that the visitor didn't find what he wanted or was put off by something.