What To Do When Improved Site Speed & Layout Result In Higher Bounce Rates & Lower Time On Site
-
We launched a new Bootstrap 3.0 site template 2 weeks ago. The site loads 5x faster and has a much improved layout (utilizing most common above the fold recommendations ). It's only been two weeks, but our bounce rate has increased 5-10% and our avg time on site decreased by 10-18%. Here is the page for one of our most common products so you can see the general experience: <a>http://www.jwsuretybonds.com/surety-bonds/commercial-bonds/auto_dealer_bond.htm</a> (here is the old version: <a>http://199.119.123.134/surety-bonds/commercial-bonds/auto_dealer_bond.htm</a>)
We spent two months implementing the new design and working on a speedy load time. We had anticipated a drastic improvement, not mild downturn in user behavior.
I'm hopeful that the Analytics metrics aren't showing the true picture on the keywords we care about (can't see anymore due to "Not Provided" listed as most keywords now. Argh!) and perhaps some of the more important/accurate user behavior metrics that we can't see are improving.
We know our industry and our clients needs VERY well. We THOUGHT our new content/layout was perfect so it will be tough for us to try to make improvements at this point. We believe our best plan of action now is to add more content on each page and A/B test it along with other subtle changes. The problem is that our new content is very concise and hits on all of the primary visitor intentions, so additions of content could be redundant and making concise answers more "fluffy", which is what we tried to get away from.
What do you think? Is there reason for panic? What would your plan of attack be if your "sure shot" new design didn't provide the improvements you "knew" it would?
-
The placeholder text on the ballpark estimate tool is using an html5 attribute which isn't supported in ie 9 or earlier. You can circumvent this with placeholders.js which will allow the attribute to work properly in browsers that don't normally support it.
-
Nice analysis. It is smart to look at performance by resolution.
I would collect more data. Some people may visit your site several times before taking any action.
-
Good thoughts, but the data is conflicting when I look at it by resolutions of the users.
Oddly enough tablets resolutions appear to have better results with the new site. Our best performing resolution on the new site is 768x1024. We're seeing a 25% increase for time on site there, compared to being down 18% on avg across all resolutions.
Larger desktop resolutions are worse with the new site.
Mobile resolutions are seeing an improved bounce rate, but less time on site.
All of the data appears to be so conflicting. As stated, we are only 2 weeks in to the new design and saw just under 10,000 sessions in this time period. Is that enough data to begin obsessing or should I wait a bit more?
-
I'm a bit perplexed as to why you feel there is less content above the fold now though.
I usually view webpages on a 1600 wide monitor. When your new page loads it spreads to about 1100+ pixels wide. However, most people view webpages in a smaller browser window - especially those who view on tablets. So, when I grab the edge of the browser window and start to narrow it, at about 1000 pixels of width both of your right columns disappear and the design collapses to a single column that has a very different presentation - with a small fraction of the clickable content options.
Try narrowing your browser window by hand and watch what happens. I have not looked at your site on a tablet but it might not look like you think.
-
It has yet to be seen of the if the "cash register is slowing down". We changed our primary focus to collecting estimates (mini-conversions that take 15 seconds) in larger quantities rather than requesting everything we need for a formal quote (5-10 min process). It appears to be on par with the old site for now, but I anticipate it possibly increasing in the coming weeks, as we are focusing further down the sales pipeline, which will take a bit for it to populate the end (sales). So far, it's promising.
Thanks for the candid assessment on the two sites. I agree on the contrast. We'll have to look into making some edits to our css to improve this.
I'm a bit perplexed as to why you feel there is less content above the fold now though...The tabs used (General, Gov Requirement, Costs, Ask An Expert) are something that I feel provides more to do above the fold. Can you elaborate?
Thanks again EGOL. Much appreciated.
-
So, bounce rate and time on site are down. Is the cash register slowing down?
About the designs. I am not surprised that the original design had a lower bounce rate. When someone lands on that page they had lots of content and navigation options above the fold. And those options were highlighted with contrasting colors (blue top nav, green calls to action, three cartoony links on the right). Your original site was toploaded and high contrast.
Your new site is low contrast (hard to find nav and alternative links because everything is white and nav links are teeny tiny type. That reduces the visibility. Also options for alternative content are now way below the fold. Furthermore, what the visitor sees changes with his monitor width. As the width of the monitor window decreases lots of above the fold content options disappear from view. When monitor window gets below 1000 pixels options to click are tiny and the design becomes much less effective. What does it look like on tablet in portrait format?
My vote is for the old design on producing a lower bounce rate, generating higher time on site and getting visitors to explore your content and products..
-
Thanks Dean. Those were some excellent finds/tips. It appears IE8 & IE9 make up 10% of our visitors collectively so a decent amount are affected.
To my surprise, IE visitors have our best bounce rates and time on site. The items you listed still need addressing, but boy are these stats baffling!
-
Hi
Just did a very quick test via saucelabs.com using windows 7 ie9 and the client logos get messed up, more importantly the 'ball park estimator' does not display any input information in the actual field. ie where you have the $Bond Amount text this is not displayed on the tests I did.
Signup for a free account (30mis of testing I think) it would be well worth it. There are other cross browser testing sites out there so any will do the job.
-
I updated the original post with a link to the old site template for comparison as well.
New: <a> http://www.jwsuretybonds.com/surety-bonds/commercial-bonds/auto_dealer_bond.htm</a>
Old: <a>http://199.119.123.134/surety-bonds/commercial-bonds/auto_dealer_bond.htm</a>
-
That's correct. The original url I posted uses the extension .htm
Chris typed html in error.
-
I can see it on auto_dealer_bond.htm rather than auto_dealer_bond.html
Have you done cross browser testing with something like www.saucelabs.com Check your analytics for the most popular browser you visitors use and test against that, also check if certain browsers are resulting in more bounces.
-
Hah! Yes...as luck would have it, immediately after making the post, our server crashed! We're up 99.9% of the time, so I don't think it is related.
We're back up now.
-
http://www.jwsuretybonds.com/surety-bonds/commercial-bonds/auto_dealer_bond.html gives me a 404 which might be a good bounce reason
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Do Wordpress sites outrank SquareSpace?
I was a big fan of Wordpress. I used it for 10 years. However, because I run a very small business, the constant upkeep needed on WP in the end started to frustrate me in the end, so I moved to SquareSpace. However, I am beginning to question my decision, as one of my sites is struggling really badly, and I mean badly. The other sites are okay. So I started asking around, and most people are saying there shouldn't be a difference. A few people have said their Wordpress sites always outranks their SquareSpace sites. Then I read what Rand Fishkin said in the below Twitter thread, now I am even more confused. I am very reluctant to move to Wordpress, its just so much hassle. But at the same time, if a site doesn't get much traffic then it's useless. https://twitter.com/drew_pickard/status/991659074134556673 https://twitter.com/randfish/status/991974456477278209 Please let me know your thoughts and experience.
Web Design | | RyanUK0 -
Multiple Sites for an Attorney Practicing Different Areas of Law
Hello, I'm trying to make sure I give a potential client the correct advice. This person is an attorney whose current site ranks well. The site deals solely with his traffic ticket defense practice. He's considering building a new site to highlight his personal injury practice but is unsure whether to build an altogether new site or redesign his current site in such a way that it includes his personal injury practice along side his traffic ticket defense practice. Obviously he doesn't want to lose his current rankings, but my concern is that he'll actually dilute his rankings somewhat with the multiple sites. Both practices have pretty different sets of keywords they would need to rank for, with pretty different difficulty levels. Any advice? Thanks.
Web Design | | lawfather2 -
Is switching from a very old HTML table site to HTML5 going to make a big difference
Hello, My site owner has been having calls that our old HTML site needs to switch to HTML5. Is it really worth the ubgrade from an archaic HTML site? Please explain. Bob
Web Design | | BobGW0 -
New Mobile Site Traffic Drop
With all the talk about how much mobile is important and how it is going to return its own search results, we finally decided to make a mobile site for one of our smaller websites to test the water. We put it up about two weeks ago and did Vary HTTP header method to serve the site. Before the change, on the average week we would get 270-300 mobile visitors from organic search results and we converted 0.78% to sales. Since the change, we are now getting about 70 mobile organic visitors per week but converting 2.47% So what can I say but WOW. We are converting way way better but our organic mobile search traffic has dropped off a ton. Luckily our desktop and tablet traffic(we serve the desktop version of the site to tablets) has stayed the same and has not dipped. Do any of you guys have experience or gone through launching a mobile site before? Did you see the immediate drop in organic mobile traffic and did you recover your traffic back to previous levels? If so, do you know how long it takes to recover? I am thinking it is a big change and will take time for Google to adjust but I am not sure since the mobile version has so much less text now on the home page and on category or product list pages or whatever you guys want to call them.
Web Design | | KurtL0 -
Comparing the site structure/design of my live site to my new design
Hi SEOmoz team, for the last few months I've been working on a new design for my website, the old, live design can be viewed at http://www.concerthotels.com - it is primarily focused on helping users find hotels close to concert venues throughout North America. The old structure was built in such a way that each concert venue had a number of different pages associated with it (all connected via tabs) - a page with information about the venue, a page with nearby hotels to the venue, a page of upcoming events, a page of venue reviews. An example of these pages can be seen at: http://www.concerthotels.com/venue/madison-square-garden/304484 http://www.concerthotels.com/venue-hotels/madison-square-garden-hotels/304484 http://www.concerthotels.com/venue-events/madison-square-garden-events/304484 http://www.concerthotels.com/venue-reviews/madison-square-garden-reviews/304484 The /venue-hotels/ pages are the most important pages on my website - and there is one of these pages for each concert venue - they are the landing pages for about 90% of the traffic on the website. I decided that having four pages for each venue was probably a poor design, since many of the pages ended up having little or no useful, unique content. So my new design attempts to bring a lot of the venue information together into fewer pages. My new website redesign is temporarily situated at: (not currently launched to the public) http://www.concerthotels.com/frontend The equivalent pages for Madison Square Garden are now: http://www.concerthotels.com/frontend/venue/madison-square-garden/304484 (the page above contains venue information, events and reviews) and http://www.concerthotels.com/frontend/venue-hotels/madison-square-garden-hotels/304484 I would really appreciate any feedback from you guys, based on what you think of the new site design compared to the old design from an SEO point of view. Of course, any feedback on site speed, easy of use etc compared to the old design would also be greatly appreciated. 🙂 My main fear is that when I launch the new design (the new URLs will be identical to the old ones), Google will take a dislike to it - I currently receive a large percentage of my traffic through Google organic search, so I don't want to launch a design that might damage that traffic. My gut instinct tells me that Google should prefer the new design - vastly reduced number of pages, each page now contains more unique content, and it's very much designed for users, so I'm hoping bounce rate, conversion etc will improve too. But my gut has been wrong in the past! 🙂 But I'd love to hear your thoughts, and thanks in advance for any feedback, Cheers Mike
Web Design | | mjk260 -
Need help to implement microdata/microformat for ecommerce site
**Can somebody please help me to implement microdata/microformats codes for our ecommerce product pages? **
Web Design | | EastEssence22
Please guide me if you have some CSS example for the same. Thanks.0 -
404 page not found after site migration
Hi, A question from our developer. We have an issue in Google Webmaster Tools. A few months ago we killed off one of our e-commerce sites and set up another to replace it. The new site uses different software on a different domain. I set up a mass 301 redirect that would redirect any URLs to the new domain, so domain-one.com/product would redirect to domain-two.com/product. As it turns out, the new site doesn’t use the same URLs for products as the old one did, so I deleted the mass 301 redirect. We’re getting a lot of URLs showing up as 404 not found in Webmaster tools. These URLs used to exist on the old site and be linked to from the old sitemap. Even URLs that are showing up as 404 recently say that they are linked to in the old sitemap. The old sitemap no longer exists and has been returning a 404 error for some time now. Normally I would set up 301 redirects for each one and mark them as fixed, but there are almost quarter of a million URLs that are returning 404 errors, and rising. I’m sure there are some genuine problems that need sorting out in that list, but I just can’t see them under the mass of errors for pages that have been redirected from the old site. Because of this, I’m reluctant to set up a robots file that disallows all of the 404 URLs. The old site is no longer in the index. Searching google for site:domain-one.com returns no results. Ideally, I’d like anything that was linked from the old sitemap to be removed from webmaster tools and for Google to stop attempting to crawl those pages. Thanks in advance.
Web Design | | PASSLtd0 -
International SEO issues for multiple sites
We currently have 3 websites: oursite.co.uk oursite.fr oursite.ch We also own Oursite.com, and that URL currently redirects to Oursite.fr. We are considering a complete site redesign and a possible merge of the 3 sites. Assumptions: ** the 3 sites currently receive organic search traffic to varying degrees
Web Design | | darkgreenguy
** Oursite.ch is almost identical to Oursite.fr in terms of the site content
** Our target market is NOT the USA for English-language searches. It is the UK. With a re-design, we see our options as follows: Merge the 3 sites and make Oursite.com the "main site" and then have subfolders as follows: /uk /fr /ch Keep the 3 sites as they are. We see Option 1 as the best in terms of saving time when updating the site, and saving money paid to the site developers (1 site vs 3 sites). We see Option 2 as the best in terms of ability of the site to rank, as well as confidence of searchers when seeing our site in the search results (in other words, a person searching in France would be more likely to buy and/or submit a form on our site if they saw Oursite.fr vs Oursite.com/fr). I guess we're looking for some suggestions/guidance here. Are we missing any big issues? Does anyone have experience with an issue such as this? Thank you in advance...
-Shawn0