Entry Pages
Your homepage may be the main entry point or landing page for many of your visitors, but this doesn’t mean that you should forget about the back and side doors that also attract people into your domain. Instead of focusing all your efforts in making your homepage as grand as possible, why not share the love in the other pages and entry points that also attract users, or better yet, improve those that push them away? You wouldn’t want your bounce rate higher than your over all traffic, would you? Search engine optimization doesn’t stop in making your homepage number one. SEO also cures your low performing pages, letting you bounce back into the search engine marketing game.
You can improve and revamp your low performing landings by:
Reassuring your visitors — Reassuring policies really lift the confidence of the readers of your site. Statements like ‘your personal information is safe with us’ are more than enough, even without flashy graphics. Putting them in bold letters right next to your e-mail or personal information collection field is a great way of bumping the confidence of your visitors up.
Collection fields — E-mail collection is a great way to network, but it is also one of the hardest things to do, especially because of privacy issues. Aside from reassuring your readers, you can also make email collection as easy and as simple as possible so as not to drive people away with unnecessary questions and fields to fill out. This way, more readers will subscribe to your news letters, catalogs, and your site, and you can increase user retention and lower your bounce rate. This is also a great way to maintain a connection with your audience.
Brag about your success — User ratings and testimonials should be made known to your first time visitors. When they see your loyal subscribers praising your work, they will be more encouraged to sign in and join the fun. Expose your five star reviews and see the effect on first time users. Soon enough you would find them actively participating in discussions, or maybe even giving you their own five star ratings.
