Q: Chris, we’ve been online for about two years now and I’m not really happy with the results we’re getting. They’re also getting worse. I think we should be getting more inquiries. Some of my friends tell me they are getting 10 to 15 inquiries a week. We’re lucky if we get 10 inquiries a month? What do you think?

A: You can quickly tell if you have a problem by looking at your bounce rate and by calculating your conversion rates.

Your bounce rate is a metric in your website stats and if you’re using Google Analytics you’ll see it in your dashboard on the right side.

Your bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who find your website, or one of it’s pages (not always your home page) and then leave your website. In other words, they didn’t click on another link to another page, which is what you want them to do, right? Usually this is done using their browser’s back button.

That being the case, your bounce rate is a very good indication of whether or not your website is working.

Bounce rate in Google Analytics is measured across your website (i.e. average), for each visitor session, and for your referrer traffic.

If your bounce rate is less than 30% you’re in great shape, but I’m going to guess that’s not the case.

A bounce rate above 70% means you have trouble. Around 50% seems to be average for most of the websites I am reviewing these days.

A high(er) bounce rate is an indication that the brides who visit your website are not clicking deeper into it. They’re just leaving. Something there isn’t getting and keeping their attention.

Bounce rate is like a golf score, lower is always better.

Conversion is a calculation that measures your total visitor session count divided by the number of inquiries you’ve received.

If you have 1000 visitor sessions in a month and get 100 inquiries your conversion rate is 10% - that’s very good.

The higher your conversion rate the better.

If you have a poor conversion ratio, you’re probably giving brides a reason to leave. That or the quality of your traffic is poor.

Link exchange traffic usually converts very poorly. “Free Link” traffic also converts poorly.

There could be other things wrong with your website, but these two metrics, bounce rate and a conversion calculation will tell you if you have a problem with your website and marketing to brides online strategy.

If you’ve got traffic but aren’t getting inquiries you may have a conversion problem. Check out my Conversion  Checklist and get that fixed quickly.

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Chris Jaeger
Marketing to Brides Online
(866) 652-7791 x701

 

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