HomeAway.com: How its robust web analytics makes it a leading vacation home rental site

HomeAway.com is an online marketplace for vacation rentals. Headquartered in Austin, Texas and valued at $3 billion, the site has more than one million live vacation rental listings in 190 countries to help families find their ideal vacation home rental. HomeAway connects homeowners and property managers to rent to travelers through this site.

The website home page features three different categories on its home slideshow: Trending in Travel, Dream Destinations and Vacation Inspiration. The home page also includes a U.S. map where customers can select a destination by state.

Overall Traffic Overview

Web traffic for HomeAway is pretty strong, with millions of visits per month and a low bounce rate. According to SimilarWeb.com, here are some web analytics HomeAway.com has experienced as of January 31, 2015:

• - Visits: 9 million
• - Average page views: 7.89
• - Bounce rate: 38.96%
• - Average time on site: 7:02 minutes

Traffic sources come from a variety of different sources, with more than 30% coming from directly visiting the website:

• - 32.92% direct
• - 31.36% referrals
• - 25.58% via searching
• - 2.58% social (with 84.64% coming from Facebook, 7.09% from Pinterest)
• - 7.35% mail
• - .21% display ads (mostly on Google) 

In terms of search traffic, the vast majority of website’s traffic is generated from organic search :

• - 95.09% organic search
• - 4.91% paid search on Google
• - Popular organic keywords: Homeaway, Home Away, Vrbo, and vacation rentals
• - Popular paid keywords: Homeaway, Home Away, Homeaway.com, Home Away from Home and Vacation Rentals 

Mobile
Furthermore, HomeAway has a mobile app enables customers to browse different properties through a personalized search, such as for specific amenities, wheelchair accessibility or pet-friendly options. The app also lets customers and share their favorites on social media. The site has revealed that 27% of its customers use a mobile device to view guest inquiries, according to a March 2013 survey of more than 1,700 customers.

Vacation Storebuilder

HomeAway partners with Vacation Storebuilder to provide its website platform services for its websites the company owns in the U.S: HomeAway.com, vrbo.com and VacationRentals.com. The all-in-one inclusive software solution offers HomeAway a platform for online booking, a website content management system, as well as online marketing tools and social media options. In 2014, HomeAway expanded the partnership to include one of its latest websites in its family, MyVacayHome.com.

Vacation Storebuilder website platform offers an eMarketing Toolkit for HomeAway’s websites that help increase organic traffic and conversions. Some of these tools include:

• - Search engine marketing
• - Search engine optimization
• - Pay-per-click marketing
• - Social media marketing
• - E-mail marketing
• - Landing page optimization
• - Customer relationship marketing
• - Analytics and reporting

Keywords Study

A few years ago, HomeAway did a study on its keywords to drive more conversions on its site, which uses Google Analytics to better understand its website activity. According to one case study, HomeAway’s goal was to drive more visits that generated inquiries to the homes listed on its site.

In order to do this, HomeAway needed to better understand the impact that paid and display ads were having on visitor conversions. Using the Data-Driven Attribution tool in Google Analytics Premium, Google Analytics tracked which channels and keywords drove the most traffic from the previous 90 days. Each customer interaction was assigned a credit rating, such as for clicks or displays, prior to converting into a sale.

Additionally, HomeAway budgeted their marketing investments towards identifying the right set of keywords to see the effectiveness of the Google Analytics Model Comparison Tool Report, which helped them decide the right keywords to display the campaigns on top. HomeAway properly credited campaigns and reattributed cost-per-acquisition into its budgeting and bidding decisions.

The Result

With a $6,000 test budget, Google analytics worked with HomeAway to identify a set of 20 keywords. As a result, the site saw a 23% increase in attributed conversions for those keywords after making the adjustments.

Based on the results in an increased conversion rate, HomeAway learned that keeping an open eye on changing trends across business and allocating money into the right marketing channels could enhance the profitability of their business.  Along with seeing where conversions were driving from, HomeAway also learned they should invest more money into their digital marketing efforts .

Additional Tools

Though HomeAway has some web analytics tools already in place through Vacation Storebuilder and Google Analytics, there are still some additional tools that will be useful for their overall website analytics. Here are a few tools:

Yext- online reputation management

With its hundreds of thousands of customers renting out vacation properties each year, there are bound to be reviews on sites such as Yelp.com and SiteJabber.com detailing their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with these properties.

Yext.com taps into these forums to hear what customers are saying, and even allows you to join in and respond to these reviews.

By using Yext, HomeAway will also be able to monitor any photos and video captured at their properties that are posted on social media, such as Facebook and Instagram. HomeAway will also be able to “like” and comment on customers’ content from within the platform.

HomeAway could use this platform to perform customer service with its customers, strengthen their relationship, and maintain their loyalty.

Custora

Custora is an e-commerce analytics software that predicts how customers will behave in the future: things they’re likely to buy, how much they’ll spend, even how often they’ll shop. The software offers customer-specific insight to enable brands to advertise and communicate in more effective and meaningful ways. The software helps brands find customers and persuade them to keep coming back.

It’s likely that HomeAway customers will likely want to go on another vacation, especially if their experience with HomeAway was a positive one. The platform enables you to segment an segment customers by campaign, source, medium, keyword, A/B testing and more. Through Custora, HomeAway can analyze its customers’ lifecycle and nudge them to be repeat vacationers through this vacation service.

Conclusion

HomeAway.com has already seen a lot of success through Google Analytics and Vacation Storebuilder. Through using additional tools like Custora and Yext, the company will be able to grow and maintain its audience even more through developing relationships with them and studying their behavior patterns.

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Google Analytics vs. Clicky

Google Analytics may be one of the most well-known web analytics tools out there. In 2013, 63% of Fortune 500 companies used Google Analytics, an increase from 45% in 2011. It’s free, easy to install and provides you with a wealth of insight to help you understand your visitors’ behavior and conversion rates. 

Though it’s often the popular choice, it’s not the only web analytics tool. Another option is Clicky, which is isn’t as well known, but is gaining popularity. According to Datanyze Universe, Clicky ranks #16 among analytics tools, while Google Analytics is ranked #1. In some ways they are comparable by offering similar traditional analytic statistics, while in other ways, have features that set them apart from each other.

But which is better? Let’s learn more about Clicky.  

Overview of Clicky

One of the most important goals of Clicky is to allow its users to see website activity in real time. This is different than Google Analytics, which can take about a day to populate traffic and visitor information. Clicky provides minute-by-minute analytics. The software enables companies to learn more about their potential customers and how they use the website.

Main Features

User-friendly Interface

Clicky offers a clean and uncluttered interface that easy to understand. It contains the most important information you’ll likely want to see first.

Real-time data

Though both Clicky and Google Analytics offer real-time data, Clicky provides more detail. By loading up the “Spy” page, you’ll see information of the user logging onto your site. A screen will pop up on your screen within a matter of seconds. You’ll then see which pages they clicked on.

User detail

Detailed information about every person who visits your site, such as username, IP address, Internet service, language and web browser. You can analyze each visitor individually and see his or her full history of actions on your site, and also attach custom data to visitors, such as usernames, or email addresses. Google Analytics isn’t this detailed. 

Video analytics

For videos embedded onto your site, Clicky can track how much time is spent viewing your videos, as well as the average time they paused or jumped somewhere new. This is helpful if you have a commercial or promotional video—you’ll know if you are losing your visitors’ interest at a particular point.

Referring Webpages

Clicky has a “Links”box that shows you all web pages that have referred visitors to any page on your website, such as Twitter, an e-mail, or another blog.

Twitter tracking

To keep up with what people are saying about you on Twitter, Clicky allows you to enter the keywords you want to track. When people mention those keywords, you’ll receive data on that activity. 

Heat maps

Heat maps can be viewed not only on a per-page basis but also for individual user sessions, all in real time. You can also heat map your split tests, allowing you to see where people are clicking on each version. This feature is normally offered by analytics programs that specialize in heat map information such as Crazy Egg. 

Alerts

Receive alerts to be notified of new visitors, goals, searches, referrers, IP tags and custom data, conversions, campaign visitors, logged in visitors, and more. Alerts appear via a desktop, email message, ClickyTouch mobile app or Twitter.

Mobile-friendly 

Clicky is a mobile-friendly service, offering hardware that shows which mobile platforms are being used by visitors on their tablet or mobile phone. It also doesn’t use any Flash, making it easy to be viewed on a mobile phone.

Easy Set-up

Set-up is similar to other analytics tools. After you create an account, you get an admin key and site key for each site you want to track. You install the code manually or use a plugin, such as for your Wordpress site. Mobile and desktop are also available to track your analytics without being on Clicky’s site.

Pricing

Clicky lets users select between its basic free version for sites with less than 3,000 views. Its ProPlus account, which starts at $9.99 per month, is required to track additional websites and access on-site analytics, heat maps, split testing, and other premium features. Clicky also offers other paid options: Pro Plus, Pro Platinum, and Custom.  

Final Thoughts

Though Clicky does offer more specific information about individual users, such as the heat map or real time data, Google Analytics still has some significant features.

By using GA, you can analyze your visitor’s behavior for free. It may not offer features like heat mapping, but it does provide users with insight on other important information such as whether a visitor shared the content on social media or clicked on an ad. 

Google also records words potential customers use that take them to your website, rank which browsers are used most, devices they are using and where they are being referred. Additionally, GA allows users to measure the engagement across different pages and create traffic funnel goals. It works great for Adsense and Adwords campaign monitoring. It also works well for smaller sites and businesses. Each time a goal is completed, Google logs the conversion into your analytics report.

It can be difficult to decide which web analytics tool to use. With that being said, I don’t think there’s a rule that you can only use one web analytics tool for a website or blog.

Besides Google Analytics and Clicky, there are many other web analytics tools out there such as OpenWeb Analytics, W3counter, Mint, HubSpot Analytics, and many others.  

Additionally, deciding which tool to use may also depend on your budget. Clicky’s features such as heat maps and Twitter tracking require a monthly/yearly payment. And, though Clicky does have a free version of its software, you may be required to pay either for an upgrade if your website traffic goes over 3,000 page views per day.

In my opinion, I think both Google Analytics and Clicky can serve as companions, not competitors. It’s wise to use both and get different aspects of your website visitor’s behavior. Each tool will give administrators insight to data that lead to understanding your audience’s behavior and help your website reach its maximum potential.

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Google is Watching You

Anytime we have a question or want to learn more about something, we turn to Google. Whether it’s to get the latest details on ISIS, Robin Williams, Ebola or the Academy Awards, Google is always there for us to turn to. It knows us well. A little too well.

Google, by far the most popular search engine, has a market share of 74.8%, followed by Bing at 12.4% and Yahoo at 10.9%. As we use Google's search engine, small data files—cookies—are stored in our computers filled with information about sites we have visited and products we clicked on. For example, we may have been browsing on Amazon for a product, and then later, while on Facebook, seen that same product in an advertisement on our news feed. That is an example of a cookie.

To the left is example of an ad placed on my Facebook feed after recently looking at Amazon Fire tablets on Amazon based on cookies stored on my computer. 

Google says that its mission is, "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." Between all the searching going on by millions of Americans each day, you can only imagine how much Google knows about us and our online habits.

Google’s collection of user data has been under much criticism in terms of ethics, privacy, and security. Let’s take a look at the different sources of data Google uses on us. 

Here's some channels Google uses to learn about us:

• Web searches: This includes images, news, blogs. All searches are tracked
• Clicks on search results: Along with tracking what you search, it also tracks what sites you clicked on
• Website analytics: Google Analytics, which is free, supports a large percentage of the world's websites
• Email: Gmail content, both sent and received, is parsed and analyzed.
• Twitter: Google has direct access to all tweets that pass through Twitter.
• Google Apps: (Docs, Spreadsheets, Calendar, etc.) – Google’s office suite has many users and is of course a valuable data source to Google.
• The Google Chrome browser: Our website browsing behavior is tracked.
• Google Maps: If you've ever used this to get directions, Google knows that, too.
• YouTube: Owned by Google, YouTube a huge amount of information about its users’ viewing habits.

See all the other channels here

Terms of Agreement

Last year, Google updated its terms of service by saying, "Our automated systems analyze your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customized search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection. This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored."

Read this: Why your website has high bounce rates

Google says that by using its services, we give the company license to use, host, store, reproduce, publish, publicly display and distribute such content. In return, Google analyze our content (including emails) to give us personally relevant product features, such as customized search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection.

Though the terms of service is there, I had never read it. I didn't even think to look up Google's terms of service.

Ethics

In 2009, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” 

This caused a buzz on the Internet, causing interpretation by to mean that Google, a company that claims to care about privacy, isn’t concerned enough to understand the basic lesson on privacy and preservation of freedom and human rights. 

At the same time, Schmidt reportedly blacklisted all CNET reporters for a year after the news website published personal information of one of Google’s founders in an article: his salary, his neighborhood, his hobbies and personal donations, all of which were obtained through Google searches. 

Google has been criticized in the past for its ethics issues. One example was reported in 2010, when Google Books illegally scanned 20 million books for a digital library. This began as a secret project in 2002. Google claims the scanning is covered by fair-use provisions of copyright law. On the other hand, publishers and authors—who filed a $125 million lawsuit against Google Books-- insist Google needed explicit permission from them before making the digital copies. 

It also showed only snippets of the copyrighted books unless permission was given to show more. Though the case was later dismissed, thousands of authors still allege that Google is illegally profiting from their works. 

These are just two of many unethical cases regarding Google. 

Privacy

In October 2013, a federal judge refused to dismiss a potential class-action lawsuit brought by Gmail users who object to its practice of analyzing the content of all messages on its network and selling byproducts to advertisers. Those suing Google said it violated federal wiretap laws. The US District Court Judge held that Google never told Gmail users that Google would create personal profiles and target users with ads. Nor did people who are not Gmail users but who were writing to Gmail addresses agree to let Google collect and parse their message.

This is similar to a 2009 case when Google’s lawyers said its email technology was used for scanning spam, computer viruses and serving ads ‘within the Gmail user’s experience.”

In a different case regarding street view mapping, Google was sued by 38 states after it admitted that its cars outfitted with roof cameras facing four directions weren’t just taking pictures—they were also collecting data form computers inside homes and structures, including “passwords, emails, and other personal information fro unsuspecting computer users.”

Security

There have also been concerns regarding Google’s security. For example, there was a major flaw in Google Chrome, the third most popular web browser at 16% market share, was recently reported, claiming the browser exposed names, email addresses, street addresses, phone numbers, bank account numbers, social security numbers and credit card numbers directly onto your hard drive in plain text without your knowledge or consent.

Read this: How to increase your conversion rate

"By default Google Chrome stores (web) form data, including data entered on secure websites, to automatically suggest for later use, the article said. “This stored data is unencrypted text and accessible if your computer or hard drive is stolen or is infected with malware."

Additionally, there was a report of Google Chrome and Google Apps confessing that the problem of passwords would continue to plague users and computer security in the foreseeable future. 

In response, Google advised users to turn on a two-step verification system, make sure their browsers are up to date and that their password recovery options are set. 

The Price We Pay

Based on Google’s issues regarding ethics, privacy and security, we can only wonder if our personal information is actually safe. However, in my opinion, using Google is the price we pay for all of Google’s benefits, especially since most of its services are free.

After all, Google is the world’s largest clearinghouse for information so deeply embedded into our daily lives. As one article states: we turn to it for advice on all kinds of things, whether it’s relationships and midlife crises, weekday hangovers and pregnancy symptoms, natural, social and financial disasters, medical information, what to wear on a first date, how to get rid of stretch marks and even how to travel alone. 

Anytime we use Google, we enable it and draw conclusions on who we are and what we care about. 

If we want to truly protect ourselves, we should change our passwords often, make them complex and not share anything we don’t want Google to expose. That’s about all we can do. 

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How to choose the social media platforms for your business

So, you have a business now and want to start reaching out to your audiences via social media. There’s many to choose from, but platform is best? Should you just use one? All of them? 

When identifying social media channels, businesses should not feel obligated to use every single platform out there. Instead, it’s wise to select those that align best with your audience and that will broadcast the type of media best suited for your business.

To give you an overall glance at the power of social media networks, here are the most active users for each:

1. Facebook: 1.28 billion
2. Google+: 540 million
3. Twitter: 255 million
4. Instagram: 200 million
5. LinkedIn: 187 million
6. Pinterest: 40 million

Depending on several different factors, such as your customers’ demographics (age, gender, education level, location, etc.), or even what content you’ll be providing, you may want to choose wisely on which platforms to use for your business. For example, if your demographics are 65 and older— they probably won’t have an Instagram account. Facebook or Pinterest may be a better choice. If your customers are kids or teenagers, LinkedIn may not be the best choice to engage with them. LinkedIn is better served for Business-to-Business companies or are network-focused. Instead, YouTube, Twitter or Facebook may be better. See what I mean? 

Let’s take a look at the most prominent social media platforms, what purposes they serve, and what types of businesses have had the best success with them.

Read this: How to improve website conversion rates

Facebook

Wishpond, a social media blog, recommends all businesses be on Facebook, which remains one of the most powerful and popular platforms used. More than 70% of online adults actively use Facebook. This platform is ideal for local businesses, as customers actively seek out business pages for updates, times and events. It’s also great for interacting with your customers, showcasing your products and services, and targeting your clients through paid advertising.

Just remember that Facebook isn’t about selling your products and services. It’s about offering a more personal connection with your customers through friendly, sociable approach. Do posts that will motivate them to respond, share and ask questions. Use photos to illustrate your brand’s story. 

Facebook works best for B2C companies and brands who sell products and software, as 42% of Facebook fans like a page to get a discount or coupon.

Twitter

Twitter is the “in the moment” platform. It is the best platform for breaking news, updates and questions for and from your followers. It is appealing to “information junkies,” meaning that if your business will be posting topic-based posts or timely insights, Twitter will work great for you.

This platform also allows you to hashtag (#) a word or phrase, which will start a trend and organizes them into a category with others tweets with the same hashtag to be more easily found and followed. It creates a lot of buzz and can lead to an increase in engagement and followers of your brand. 

Twitter works best for B2B businesses and entities that post publications, such as on blogs, microblogs and websites. 

LinkedIn

Linkedin works well for B2B companies, as well as other companies who are looking to grow their business contacts with individuals and companies, find future employees for their company, and establish themselves as an industry expert. They can also use Groups to ignite industry-related and company-related discussions.  Research shows that 65% of B2B companies have acquired customers through LinkedIn, while 90% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn.

Pinterest

Pinterest is an excellent platform for ecommerce, such as those in fashion, food, photography, jewelry, and home hardware stores (DIY). Among Pinterest users, 70% of them use the platform for inspiration on what to buy. These types of businesses can post the photo onto a “board,” and when a consumer clicks on it, will be taken to the business’s website to learn more or ideally purchase the item. If your company targets moms, Pinterest is also a must, as 61% of moms say they more likely visit Pinterest than the average American.

Demographics-wise, if your main audience is women, this platform is a great choice—84% of Pinterest users are female. Also, 34% of Pinterest users have an average household income of $100,000. 

Read this: Why your website has high bounce rates

Instagram

Instagram is a heavily photo-based platform popularly used by restaurants, clothes, fashion architecture, technology and designers. The dominant age range is 18-29, so if your business target this group, you should definitely be on Instagram. You’ll also find it interesting that 30% of teens say Instagram is the most important social network.

YouTube

YouTube, the top video-sharing social network, gives companies an enormous potential, as it reaches more adults ages 18-34 than any cable network. It’s also the second most-used search engine following Google. The free site enables user to not only watch videos, but also like them, comment and share them with their friends in other social networks. Businesses also have the potential to have a video go viral, allowing content to be seen by millions in a short period of time. 

If your brand is visually driven, such as an online retailer or other e-commerce business, YouTube will allow you to give customers an up-close look at products and showcase customer success stories. Research shows that 52% of consumers who watch product videos make them more confident in online purchasing decisions. 

Google+

About 68% of Google+ users are men. Popular users include professionals such as students, technology industry professionals, bloggers and photographers are. Since Google+ is owned by Google, posting content on there will increase your chances of being found through local search.

Wrapping Up…

So, depending on what type of business you own or work for, certain social media sites will be more effective than others. By building a basic profile of your customers and looking at their age, gender, buying habits, income level, marital status and hobbies, you’ll be able to determine what social platforms they’ll use to find more information about you and purchase your products or service.

Just remember than regardless of what platforms you decide to implement into your social media plan, remember this: content is king. In other words, post content that your customers will want to talk about. 

It’s not enough to just post content out into the world wide web. That’s just the first step. As Catherine Novak of Social Media Today says, “Users are constantly sending out little bits information, but the fun really doesn’t start unless these morsels are taken up by someone else and responded to, passed along, or even “liked.” 

Make each post filled with action, emotion and personal experience. These types of posts get conversations started. Treat your customers like people, not “consumers.”

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How to improve your conversion rate

It’s all about the conversions, people. 

The purpose of building a website is to get visitors to purchase your product or service at a high rate. If visitors aren’t doing this, you’ll need to change your strategy. When customers do what you want them to, that is called the conversion rate. 

By having a website that is structured approach where areas are tested, simplified and easy to follow, you’ll be much more effective.

Read this: What social media platforms are best for your website?

What’s a good conversion rate?

According to a 2012 Marketing Sherpa Report, conversion rates vary by industry.

But rather than being concerned about your conversion rate compared to other industries, focus on improving your own current ROI. Keep performing tests to see what works best.

Tips to improve conversion

1. Make your unique value proposition clear: When visitors get to your landing page, make the benefit of your website and why they should do business with you clear.
   
   
   
   For example, Schwann, who has a conversion rate of 41.7%, makes the the advantage clear for first-time orderers by simply joining their email list. By consumers receiving this email list, they are likely to keep up with Schwann’s for future products to purchase.
2. They test their call-to-actions: From the words, to colors used, to the amount of white space surrounding it, to its size, sites with high conversion rates do A/B testing to find what is more effective.
   
3. They test their headlines: Just like call to actions are tested, so are the headlines to see which ones are more compelling.
   
   Highrise, a contact management tool to help businesses stay organized, tested two headlines/subheadlines using A/B testing. They ran the test for 4,000 page views to see which one generated more “Sign up” button clicks.
   
   The headline below received 30% better conversion than the original one above.
   
   The headline below received 37% better conversion than the original.
   
4. They have short forms. Many customers don’t want to take the time to fill out a lot of information on themselves to get what they want, whether it’s a newsletter, eBook, or free gift in the mail. The less information they have to fill out, the better.
   

   Read this: Why your website has high bounce rates

   Take a look at Men’s Health’s 4 Week Fat Shredder newsletter. This pops up as soon as you visit the website. All that’s required is an email address. Simple.
   
   
   
   So, in general, fewer fields produce higher conversion rates. In other cases, having more fields in a form can improve your conversion rate. That’s why, again, it’s important to test it to see what works best.
5. They offer free shipping. Shipping and handling fees are the number one reason why online shopping carts are empty. When Saul Torres, marketing analyst at Global Healing Center, heard free shipping would increase his conversion rate, he put it to the test. He sent 50% of traffic to one page offering free shipping and the other 50% to another page with the standard $2.99 shipping rate. Torres discovered a 20-25% increase in conversion rates on his products.
   
   

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Why is your website "bouncing?"

If you had to choose between visiting one of these two websites, which would you prefer?





The Stanford Daily is much cleaner and easier to navigate. The SF Gate article is way too busy and not as user-friendly. When lookers visit websites like SF Weekly, they can be immediately turned off and not even bother looking through the website. Instead, they’d rather go to a website like the Stanford Daily to find the most recent news.

Unfortunately, websites like SF Gate probably experience high bounce rates, meaning visitors leave your website after only being on it for no more than a few seconds. No conversions are made.

It is not good. It’s the kiss of death for your website.

The average bounce rate for websites is about 50%. This means that half of those who visit your page leave and don’t come back.

The ultimate goal of a website is to create conversions. The more time visitors spend on your website, the more likely they are to convert and act as you would ideally like them to, whether it’s buying a product, signing up for a newsletter or making an inquiry. If they aren’t doing any of those things, you’ll need to revisit your content marketing strategy.

Let’s explore more about bounce rate, shall we?

Read this: What social media platforms are best for your website?

What's the average bounce rate?

Bounce rates can vary based on the type of website. According to Hubspot, here are some averages:

• Content Websites: 40-60% 
• Lead Generation: 30-50% 
• Blogs: 70-98% 
• Retail Sites: 20-40% 
• Service Sites: 10-30% 
• Landing Pages: 70-90%

What's wrong with your website?

1. Poor website design. Is your website poorly designed? It is hard to navigate? A poorly designed website can make your website hard to navigate. Visitors can get easily frustrated, and rather than spend time looking for what they’re specifically seeking, it’s easier to just go to another website instead (Hall, 2012).
   
   To encourage visitors to click around and convert, make sure your website looks professional and is and functional. Add colors and patterns to your headlines to make it look more exciting and draw your readers toward important information on your page.
2. Not responsive for web. If a visitor is viewing your website on their smart phone, but the text is too small, they’re not likely to stay. Make sure your website is easy to read on any device, whether it’s desktop, tablet or smart phone.
3. Lack of compelling content. Go through your pages with high bounce rates and see if your content is too long, wordy, passive, or in big blocks of text. Improve the content by making your messaging more punchy and clear. Break up large paragraphs into smaller paragraphs. Use sub-headlines. Fix any typos. Turn some of your points into bullet points. These could make a difference!
4. No visuals. Do you have any photos, audio or multimedia on your website? Visuals help tell your company story better. Embedding visuals, like a short video, can keep your visitors on your site longer. Add photos; just make sure they’re optimized for web to prevent your website from taking too long to load. Slow-to-load websites can lead to high bounce rates as well.
5. No internal links. If you don’t have any text hyperlinked to other pages on your website, this means the visitor will either have to search around your website blindly for it themselves, or find another website instead. Internally linking your webpages will cause visitors naturally and conveniently click the link and read more information on other pages. 

Read this: How to improve website conversion rates

References:

Hall, S. (2012, October 2). 7 reasons your bounce rate is high (and how to reduce it). Crazy Egg. Retrieved January 24, 2015 from http://blog.crazyegg.com/2012/10/02/reasons-bounce-rate-is-high/

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