Why your Website’s Home Page Is More Trampoline than Elmer’s

Average bounce rates on the Home pages of websites vary wildly from industry to industry. But there are a few things you should know.

First, bounce rate, according to Google, is “the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page without interacting with the page).” If eight of 10 people leave your site before visiting another page, your bounce rate is 80 percent.

Second, although bounce will never completely disappear, the goal should be to reduce your bounce rate as much as possible. Bounce rate can actually affect your website’s search ranking.

Third, the Home page is still the front door of the website. There are plenty of entry points – blog posts, newsletters, landing pages, podcasts, etc. – but most direct visits still begin on the Home page.

An effective Home page is the Elmer’s glue that begins to create a bond between your business and website visitors. This is where relationships begin and the conversion process is launched.

An ineffective Home page is a trampoline. Visitors bounce as quickly as they arrived.

I find myself bouncing quite a bit. Sure, I can be picky. But most Home pages lack the basics that visitors need to move forward in their journey.

If I’ve ever bounced from your Home page, it’s a safe bet that the reason is listed here.

This should be instantly obvious when someone visits your website for the first time.

Every business on the face of the earth must be able to explain what it does in one simple sentence, whether it’s an electrician, an app developer, or an insurance provider.

For some reason, you couldn’t. So I got frustrated. And left.

You explained what you do. But I still don’t get the value of what you do, even in the simplest of terms.

What’s the payoff?

Instead of telling me how you’re going to make my life better or easier, or directing me to a page that provides that information, you claimed to be a full-service something-or-other (because nobody likes a half-service company) with the best customer service.

Wawah-wawawawah-wawawah…

For you whippersnappers who are too young to understand the Charlie Brown reference, here you go.

I love WordPress. I love their themes. But so does everyone else.

Most organizations aren’t doing enough customization to stand out from the thousands of others that use similar themes.

For example, the trendy thing to do on the Home page these days is to have a headline and short paragraph of content on a photo that takes up the entire screen.

This approach leads to high fives between designers and business owners. But in most cases, that giant photo does nothing to grab the visitor’s attention, reinforce the brand, or help convey the value of what the company does.

If it doesn’t have a strategic purpose, it’s nothing but window dressing. But everyone else is doing it, so you did it, too.

When your Home page is the same old, same old – the same theme with a different logo and stock image – you give people like me an excuse to leave. And forget.

Maybe you tried to be clever with your page titles instead of being obvious. Maybe your navigation was complicated. Maybe the language you used to preview the content on certain pages was unclear. Maybe your Home page didn’t function properly on my smartphone.

I looked and looked but couldn’t find. And nothing pointed me in the right direction.

I have climbed the highest mountains. I have run through the fields. But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.

So I left.

I liked what I saw on your Home page. You grabbed my attention and kept my interest.

Now what?

Without a clear call-to-action, your visitors may take the less desirable action. Or no action at all.

While I was trying to figure out what the best next step would be, I got an email from a potential client. Then my wife called.

Maybe I’ll get back to your website later.

You didn’t put your contact information on your Home page. The design and content seemed a bit on the amateur side.

I got clobbered with sales pitches, self-serving yet unsubstantiated claims of greatness, and pop-ups that tried to make me feel stupid for not submitting my personal information.

In other words, I got the feeling you were more interested in making a buck and adding me to your email list than helping me. Even if that’s true, you didn’t have to make it so obvious on your Home page.

I was a little uncomfortable. And you didn’t earn my trust.

So I left.

I expect a website, especially the Home page, to be equally intuitive, informative and visually appealing on my 5-inch smartphone and my 24-inch desktop monitor.

Perhaps you think my expectations are too high. I disagree. This is 2015 for goodness sake.

But that’s fine. I left your website and found a competitor who met my expectations.

It loaded. And loaded. And loaded.

I don’t know why it took so long, but that’s not my problem. So I left.

If you want people to get beyond your Home page, make sure you understand who your visitors are and what they want. Make sure your content, design and functionality give them what they want and deliver the user experience they expect.

Give them one compelling reason to continue their journey. Not three reasons or 10 reasons. A website visitor only needs one good reason to click and move one step closer to a sale.

To be fair, not every visit needs to go deeper than the Home page to be considered successful. For example, if the visitor goes to a retailer website to get the store address, finds it, and quickly leaves, the Home page did its job.

But is it ever a bad thing if someone wants to learn more?

Take a look at your Home page and break it down piece by piece. Ask your customers what they like and don’t like. Remove or improve the parts of your Home page that are likely contributing to a higher bounce rate.

Be Elmer’s, not a trampoline, and start converting more visitors into clients.