Ask HN: Any recommendations on how to improve a homepage bounce rate?

[maserati]

I got a personal project where the current homepage bounce rate is 48.90%. Is this bad or acceptable? Any recommendations, suggestions for this kind of project. Can I still improve this? This is my first time managing a site. I already posted the site's url here before and I don't want to be look like a spammer by posting the same url again. If you're interested in helping a fellow hacker, the site's url is in my profile. Appreciate your feedbacks in advance.

[lforrest]

There's no hard and fast rule to acceptable bounce rates but here's some context. I have several sites and have worked with many companies on site optimization and have seen higher than 49%. The bounce rate of my personal site is 31%. Strong well established startups I've worked with that get qualified traffic are in the low 30% range. My other misc. projects are in the 40% to low 50% range.

Yes, you can still improve your 49%. Shoot for the high 30-s. From briefly glancing at your homepage there's a lot of glaring things you could be doing better:

As a start... -Have one clear call-to-action that resides in a easy to see button. Right now you have several that are encompassed in easy to miss text links. As a visitor I'm not sure what to do to get started.

-Use graphics that show what your company does. Right now there's way too much text - people don't read, you've got about 3 seconds to show them what you do, and graphics are a visually compelling way to communicate this.

-Your logo is hard to read, and the value prop in your tagline isn't differentiated enough. (90% of social networking services can describe themselves using the same line). Think about your site's individual value prop and communicate that.

-Work on layout. Your current design looks like a template that's 5 years old (sorry!). Get a designer (99 Designs) to make you something good. It's worth it. This page is begging for a redesign.

-Test and iterate. Use Google Site Optimizer (free) for a/b testing and/or UserTesting.com (cheap) to get more info on how real people react to your site.

Good luck!

[maserati]

Thanks for your suggestions.

[melissamiranda]

Just had a look at your site, and michael is right that A/B testing will help. So will user testing: just showing the page to a bunch of friends to see what they get and don't get. From looking at your page, I have a suggestion you might consider: Add a big font (30+ px) sentence on what your site does, e.g., "Create beautiful photo album for FREE". That saves the trouble of reading the block of text explanation. You can add the secondary benefits in a bulleted list below: "-unlimited photos / -Google Maps links / Chatbox." Then give a picture of what it looks like. Put the search box top right in your header to give you more room.

[maserati]

Thanks for your time. I'll try your suggestions.

[michael_dorfman]

First of all: I don't think 49% is a particularly horrific bounce rate, but like all things, it depends on context. Conversion rate is much (much!) more important.

Second: looking at your home page, I can see lots of opportunities for improvement, all of which can be A/B tested.

For example: your "Today's photo" widget is tiny-- probably half the size of the third-party ad I got served by Google on your page.

You might want to talk to a designer, to get started.

[maserati]

Thanks a lot. I do the front-end and back-end of the site so I don't really have a designer. Any recommendations for an affordable designer for consultation?