Bounce Rate and How To Reduce It For Your Website

Getting To The Restaurant And Deciding To Eat Elsewhere

The best description I have ever heard to describe bounce rate is that its like doing all the hard work to attract someone to a restaurant and once they arrive and see the place they walk straight out and decide to eat elsewhere.  Harsh but true and by implication all the effort, resources, time and money to achieve this visitor is wasted.  So put simply the bounce rate is the rate of website visitors that after arriving at the home page of your website regardless of how long they stay,  exit without any other interaction with any other page on the site. So for example with one thousand website visitors land on your website and seven hundred leave without going any deeper into the site you will have a bounce rate of seventy (70) percent.

What Constitutes An Acceptable Bounce Rate

Now although I have heard many arguments over the years about what constitutes a good or a bad bounce rate, I think I can safely say that anything over thirty (30) percent as demonstrated by a typical Google Analytics metrics report, is genuinely unacceptable based on everything we know about what causes it and by definition, what remedies will improve it.

Sadly some of the websites I have seen and worked on through 2014-15 with the Digital Enterprise Program have shown me sites that have had bounce rates of up to a staggering ninety percent.

So what can we do ten to minimise this website business killer?


Proven remedies for High Bounce Rates

1. Fast loading home (or otherwise designated landing) pages. Typically most website visitors will only wait a few seconds for a page to fully load and if it doesnt in say three to four seconds, they will be gone. Therefor it is vital that you ensure that your landing page is quick to load on an browser and with any type of device.  To test your website's loading speed you can test it using:http://www.webpagetest.org



2. The page is attractive, functional and intuitive to navigate. Assume from the start that your visitor isn't an IT luminary with a multimedia degree and requires an intuitive interface to stay.


3. Your webpage is responsive and thanks to the wonders of CSS formats perfectly to any device. This has always been a nice thing to have but since April 21,  2015 is now a Google imposed imperative. Enough said.


4. Your content is clear, concise, relevant and well written in a way that will resonate with your target market. If you feel it doesn't, rewrite it now.


5. The content provides true value in that it meets the needs of the visitors and in the process is timely, educational, humorous and written to solve problems.


6. The images on the page are  relevant to the topic and do not distract from the content on the page.


7. Appropriate calls to action are clearly visible and provide a clear cut action step to drive behaviour beyond this first landing page.


8. The headings on the landing page are aligned with the call to action or advertisement title, so that the website visitor is  comfortable with where they have landed.


9.  In trying to develop prospect and customer information such as email lists, you do not over reach by asking  for excessive information too early.


10. The key functionality of the page is above the fold and therefore does not require the visitor to scroll excessively below the natural fold of the page.


By ensuring that your website or blog landing page adheres to these key landing page principles you will be able to maximise the attractiveness of your landing page and minimise the dreaded bounce rate.


If you'd like more information on website design or any other aspect of digital strategy, join us at any of the seven digital enterprise workshops as outlined on:

http://www.vecci.org.au/business-solutions/digital-enterprise-program/workshops



And so until next time, good luck and good marketing.


Regards,

Daniele.

Facebook Announce Two Impressive Advertising Changes To Better Support Advertiser Sales

Facebook Continues To Innovate

Facebook have recently announced two impressive changes that will both generate great interest and with any luck, great sales for the Facebook advertisers. Specifically these two promotional initiatives are:

1. The introduction of multi-product ads displayed through a revolving carousel style platform, and 2. Updates to for your custom audiences that can be made directly from your own website.

 

Multi Product Ads

Multi product or carousel ads provide businesses with a unique ability to highlight multiple products with a single ad unit, and allows this functionality on both mobile or desktop. Within this protocol every included product will have its own picture, product description and call to action.

Combining Both Initiatives

So from now on , to give an example online retailers will be able to combine the functionality of the Facebook system by combining the multi-product ad unit with the Facebook Custom Audiences from your website, to be able to produce a carousel of multiple products based on the viewing history of people that have previously been to your website, where this ad can be viewed in your news feed based on the  target audience you select.

Early Positive Results

Facebook reported in their blog that E commerce company Nomorerack had trialled this system and experience both an increase in click through rate (CTR) by forty two percent as well as a cost per acquisition decrease of up to forty five percent. 

From now all advertisers will be able to adopt this approach by using the Facebook ads API.
Eventually this system will also be integrated into the main promotional system as well.

Enhanced Custom Audiences From Your Website

Moving forward Facebook will continue to polish and refine the Custom Audiences feature, which will provide the opportunity to more precisely target market their ideal target market members. 

Specifically the system will allow:

A new feature in Ads Manager and Power Editor that give businesses the ability  to focus on different behaviours such as those who visit your site regularly, those are infrequent visitors, those that have never bought from you  and those that go to specific pages.

As well there is additional functionality that allows the system to automatically build audiences based on actual behaviours of individuals whilst on your site.

These changes will enhance an already formidable range of Facebook promotional options to provide what will no doubt be significantly better outcomes for many of it's faithful advertisers.

Digital Enterprise Program

 Naturally to discuss any aspect of Facebook marketing or anything else from the digital world, simply sign up for any of the seven  free two hour workshops that you can book via:
 http://www.vecci.org.au/business-solutions/digital-enterprise-program

So until next time, gpod luck and good marketing.
Regards,
Daniele.

on: http://www.vecci.org.au/business-solutions/digital-enterprise-program for mor - See more at: http://www.roadscholarstraining.com/blog/2015/after-over-one-year-the-digital-enterprise-is-coming-towards-a-close.html#sthash.rCwYr1zO.dpuf

To book your seat now you can call VECCI directly on: (03) 8662 5333 or email: or go to VECCI’s website directly on: http://www.vecci.org.au/business-solutions/digital-enterprise-program for more information.  I urge everyone to pass this post on to anyone they feel may require of benefit from attending and of the workshops or coaching sessions.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,

Daniele.

- See more at: http://www.roadscholarstraining.com/blog/2015/after-over-one-year-the-digital-enterprise-is-coming-towards-a-close.html#sthash.rCwYr1zO.dpuf

 

To book your seat now you can call VECCI directly on: (03) 8662 5333 or email: or go to VECCI’s website directly on: http://www.vecci.org.au/business-solutions/digital-enterprise-program for more information.  I urge everyone to pass this post on to anyone they feel may require of benefit from attending and of the workshops or coaching sessions.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,

Daniele.

- See more at: http://www.roadscholarstraining.com/blog/2015/after-over-one-year-the-digital-enterprise-is-coming-towards-a-close.html#sthash.rCwYr1zO.dpuf

Why Should I Go To The Trouble Of Having A Blog

The Need For A Corporate Blog

Of all the various social media platforms there is no doubt that Blogs have a unique and vitally important role for all digital media marketers to include a s part of a blended and proactively designed social media structure where every cog supports and synergies with the others.  Specifically blogging is the number one source of information for many markets and for women in particular is often the unquestioned number one source of  gaining information about required areas of need.

The Key Options

Naturally for such a popular and universally used social media option, there are many available options for bloggers to use. At the top of the list are Google's Blogger and Word Press. Now there are pros and cons for both but essentially you can boil it down to this.Word Press have a slightly more functional platform while Blogger is a Google product. In the end they are both great options and together make up probably around three quarters of the worlds blogs.

Feebly, Ghost, Tumblr and Live Journal are other excellent options that provide some other tactical variations that again should be explored and considered in making a decision on what the best option for you may be.

What Makes A Good Blog Post

There are some key aspects required to make your blog a great read that people will embrace and support over time.  Amongst the key aspects are:

• Regularity:  Readers expect your blog to be delivered on a regular basis e.g. weekly
• Consistency: If you blog around 500 to 700 words each post don't throw in 200 word posts
• Informative: Provide relevant information that gives readers additional knowledge and insight
• Relevance:  Regardless of what your topic is provide content that directly feeds into that
  

 Strategically Different and Aligned

Each of the different platforms each perform an important task and the role of blogs is to inform. Blogs are by and large not necessarily visual or are they generally set up as a discussion forum. Their main function is as a provider of new, important and sought after information. As such blogging is a vital link in virtually all social media networks and needs to be planned, resourced and prioritised as highly or more highly than any other element of the social media mix.

Digital Enterprise Program

To learn more about blogs, the different types and all aspects of content creation please fell free to join us at any of the Digital Enterprise Program (DEP) workshops and gain access to a free four hour coaching session for your business.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,
Daniele.

The Five Pillars Of Great Advertising

Introduction

In recent times the value of advertising as a traditionally accepted promotional

platform has started to be questioned based on results suggesting that the levels of

trust for advertising are at an all time low at around ten percent or putting it another 

way, one in ten people believe what they see in advertising.So then why do so many 

companies continue to invest so heavily in advertising?

The A.I.D.A Model

We know from copious amounts of behavioural data that behavioural change happens gradually in steps

and these steps as set out by the AIDA model areas follows:

1. Attention

2. Interest

3. Desire

4. Action

This model has been universally accepted as showing the stages of acceptance and 

correctly identifies attention as the first vital step, which of course is what advertising 

always was and continues to be so good at today.

Once this is done your market literally know you exist you can then proceed to tick 

the other three boxes either with advertising or any compilation of promotional tools based on the 

demographics and usage patterns of the target audience.

The Five Pillars

To  become great advertising it needs to tick all five boxes pillars to a high level and certainly in

the minds of the target market. These five pillars are:

 
•The Challenge: What the advertising aims to achieve.  Does it aim to:

•Inform

•Persuade

•Remind



•The Copy:  What will be said in this advertising which constitutes your core message. For this consider the target
market and the products and services that make up your total value proposition



•The Channel:  Where will the message be placed and why. What evidence exists that this channel will work well.



•The Cost:  Looks at the budget that will be incurred to deliver this core message to the audience  whilst fulfilling the required reach and frequency requirements.



•Control Function: How you measure and monitor your performance against projected performance.  Changes in front line metrics such as incremental sales and  key indicators such as intention to  trial and intention to buy are typical examples of the control function in use.

Overall

The role for advertising is still clear and when used in the right way and to the right extent,
advertising can still be an extremely efficient and cost effective way to launch a campaign at a low cost
per contact and then dove tail in with other recognised approaches that will further drive the core
message.

Time For Your Website To Get Its Very Own SSL Certificate

    April 21,  2015

In recent days there has been a significant amount of discussion around the need to make your website mobile responsive and by extension provide website visitors with a better user experience based on Google's edict that from April 21 sites that did not conform to this requirement would rank below those that did. As well as being mobile responsive, readability of text based on size and the number of effective links from the content will also be factored in to this new grading. So OK that part of the message is well and truly out there and understood but the other important part of the Google message is still falling largely on deaf ears.

The Need for SSL Certificates

And that of course is the equally compelling need for all websites to deploy an SSL or Secure Sockets Layer certificate to protect users of your website having their valuable information stolen by unauthorised hackers listening in to the online conversation illegally.

Extended Validation

Although Google have not come out and mandated the type of SSL certificate sites must have it is a pretty fair bet that they will reward those sites that employ a high level of security via a premium SSL which use Extended Validation (EV).

As per the example above highlighting the Commonwealth Bank Net-banking page on Comm Bank, the URL bar clearly shows the green font demonstrating  the EV status of top line security.

When a website is not protected with an SSL certificate, the URL bar will display some like:

http://www.thebusinessname.com

(where http is short for hypertext transfer protocol, which is an application protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems and is the foundation of data communication for the world wide web (www).

When the website is protected it will display as:
https://www.thebusinessname.com

(where the 's' confirms the protection of the existing SSL certificate).


When the SSL certificate has extended validation (EV), the URL will display as:


       https://www.thebusinessname.com

where everything up to the top line domain name (in this case .com) is in green, and will have a small green lock on its Left hand side as per the CommBank example provided above.


 So what ever type of SSL you choose to get for your site, the point is to act and act now for minimal delay and to be in alignment with Google's new policies.

And naturally if there is anything else you'd like to know about feel free to join us the next digital enterprise workshop as booked through www.vecci.or.au/dep to book a free workshop and subsequent fee four hour coaching session for your business firm.

So Until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Regards,
Daniele.

To book your seat now you can call VECCI directly on: (03) 8662 5333 or email: or go to V.E.CC.I.’s website directly on: http://www.vecci.org.au/business-solutions/digital-enterprise-program
for more information.  I urge everyone to pass this post on to anyone they feel may require of benefit from attending and of the workshops or coaching sessions.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,

Daniele.

- See more at: http://roadscholarsmarketing.blogspot.com.au/#sthash.ZJwvYdsS.dpuf