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February 27, 2006
Avoiding the Dreaded One-Page Visit
Getting to the top of the organic or even the pay-per-click search list isn't the end of the battle - it's only the beginning. Think about the way you search online; you type in a phrase in the query box, and you click on the most promising result on the first page. Once you hit that first page, if it isn't immediately apparent that you have found what you're looking for, then you hit the back button and try the next result. So how do you get people to stop at your site, and not hit that back button for the next result?
The 'Depth of Visit' report in Google Analytics points out the number of pageviews per visit, and an example of which is shown at the bottom of the article. For a larger view, please see: View image
The 'Entrance Bounce Rates' report indicates the percentage of people that left after viewing each individual page, and this is shown to the left. For a larger view, please see: View image
A high frequency of one-page visits combined with a high bounce rate often means that once a visitor lands on your site, they become lost and they are hitting that back button and moving on.
Make sure that your landing page correlates to the search term. If your site sells gourmet food, when somebody searches for chocolate make sure you send them directly to the chocolate subcategory and not to your homepage. Make sure that the page visitors first land on provides the motivation, persuasion, and a clear value for continuing the process.
Also pay attention to the other sites that show up on the same page of results as your site for your most popular search terms. These are the pages that people are comparing your site with. If you had a brick-and-mortar store with a competitor across the street you would make sure you knew what promotions, offers, and products they had, right? Online real estate should be no different.
