how to decrease bounce rate

Announcer 00:00:02 – 00:00:27

Andrew is the Aussie bloke living in the U.S. Heather is the American gal living in Australia. Together, they travel the world sharing strategies on how to put your business on auto-pilot. Doing business online is no longer about having a website; to get more clients and take care of the ones you have, you will need a map. They've got it. So sit back and relax, and welcome aboard. This flight is bound to auto-pilot your business.

Andrew 00:00:30 – 00:01:13

Hello, everybody, this is Andrew McCauley. Welcome back to podcast number 26. This is the final podcast in this series of statistics and fun numbers that we've been doing. And we hope you've been getting a lot of value out of these previous podcasts. This final one today is all about your website bounce rate. Sounds crazy, sounds like a sport, but it's not. It's all about metrics that you really need to know for your business. Now, of course, I couldn't do this all by myself so all the way from the cold, wet, lovely town of Sydney- bringing all the warmth she can into this exhilarating final podcast- is the amazing Heather Porter.

Heather 00:01:14 – 00:01:23

Hey, guys! Andrew, has anyone ever told you you're the most enthusiastic person about online marketing? I just laugh every time, it's great.

Andrew 00:01:23 – 00:01:26

I'm the most enthusiastic person about metrics.

Heather 00:01:27 – 00:01:34

You are! You make it sound very exciting. I'm sitting here going, "Wow, bounce rate. It must be amazing!" And it is, isn't it? We have a lot to share.

Andrew 00:01:35 – 00:01:51

This is the thing: all of this stuff is really dead boring. It truly is, and it's great for insomniacs. But at the end of the day, you've got to know this stuff. You've just got to know what it is. Because if you don't measure, you don't know if it's working or not. And, you know, to give you a quick example before I get into what you learned this week ...

Heather 00:01:52 – 00:01:53

I know!

Andrew 00:01:53 – 00:03:05

I'll give you a quick example. We've been running ads for our magazine and we've been getting a very high click-through rate. So a lot of people are clicking on the ads- like thousands and thousands of people clicking on the ads- but our conversion, which if you've been listening to our podcasts, you know exactly what that is, our conversion was pretty low. So, we spent a couple of hours just today going through why would that be the case? And we knew which areas to look at. And it turns out that one of our platforms that we use for our magazine is- when

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people land there, it doesn't actually show the price of the magazine. And we only discovered this today after- we've been running ads for about a week or so, looking at all different things and why it's not working. And we discovered that there's no price of the magazine, which is not very confident for people when they want to go buy something, it says "buy now" but it doesn't tell them how much. So, they're like, "Well, we're not sure if we want to commit to something we don't know the price of." So we've adjusted that and we're already getting some changes in our results straight away. But if we didn't go and check that sort of stuff, we could be spending a lot of money on ads that would just be wasting our time.

Heather 00:03:06 – 00:03:42

You know it, and most people- if you say, "Oh, yeah, have you done Facebook ads?" and they said, "Ugh, yes I have" and they have this really sad-sounding voice. And then I ask them the question, "Oh, really? So, what sort of results did you get?" and inevitably they always say, "Well, I actually didn't really know what to look for." So they're placing ads because they think they should be and have no results and have no idea why because they don't know what they're looking for. So, like you said, it is incredibly important to understand each of these things and to understand how to constantly be looking at ways to be improving them as well.

Andrew 00:03:40 – 00:04:21

Yeah, and here's another thing, too: we're not going to talk about this too much today but I'm around people who specialize in this sort of stuff. They'll do a lot of this analytic stuff for you and they'll report it for you. They'll say, "Here's the report, here's what's happening on your website." You don't really need to learn it, but if you know what you need to look for, then at least you can go and say, "OK, now I know I'm looking for someone who can tell me what my bounce rate is and how to fix it. Somebody give me a report on my conversions, somebody give me a report on my shopping cart and ------- rates" and that sort of thing. And then you sound like at least you know what you're doing. And when they give you the report, you know you can start looking at the right numbers and the right figures, and know what is a good figure and what is a bad figure.

Heather 00:04:22 – 00:04:53

Yeah, right about now you guys are speaking the lingo that you need to speak. And if you actually want to go back and discover why we've done these series and kind of take them in order, just go back to episode number 19. That's where we actually talk to you about statistics overall and why it's important to understand them. And then from there all the way up until this one we break it down in each one of our past episodes to, you know, fill you in on the language you need to know and more importantly, how to improve what you're doing on your online marketing.

Andrew 00:04:53 – 00:04:58

You're now turning into geeks, fully-fledged geeks. You're learning the language!

Heather 00:04:58 – 00:04:59

Congratulations!

Andrew 00:05:00 – 00:05:18





Congratulations, you're part of the cult. So, before we kick off today- our final one in the series- this is not our final podcast, by the way, so put those tissues away. Don't get upset. What did you learn this week? What did you learn and what was interesting for you in this fun-filled week of yours?

Heather 00:05:18 – 00:06:20

Well you'll probably find this no surprise but we have been- Andrew and I have been running a series of webinars, as well, externally of this, and we did one just before we jumped on with you guys for this podcast about financial reports and statements and how to automate that more in your business. And the biggest thing I learned was that, you know, there's so many tools out there. There are so many out there. There really are. Each one of them work very very well. But I think for me, it's like: well, you know what, I know we're doing this whether in our business or for our clients, but there's parts of that where you are busy working so hard with your business and your clients and everybody else around you that you kind of neglect what you were doing with yourself. So, the biggest thing I was learning today was: well, you know what, I actually need to start doing this for myself, as well. Some of these organizations, some of this auto-pilot stuff that we teach so much. Biggest learning lesson, guys, is whatever you're teaching others and doing for others, probably you're neglecting it on yourself. So, look at yourself individually and how, you know, you can constantly improve what you're doing, as well.

Andrew 00:06:21 – 00:06:33

I wouldn't say all of that's true. Like, we teach people the stuff that we're doing. We're doing a lot of that, actually. Sometimes you're right, though. Sometimes there's stuff that you should look in your own backyard, as well, right?

Heather 00:06:33 – 00:07:07

Yeah, and I think it more stemmed from a conversation, as well. I was speaking to a group just less than a week ago and we were all having a good laugh because we were all saying that, you know, when you're an expert and you're teaching something, oftentimes you're working so hard and you're working harder on your clients and businesses than you're actually focusing on yourself at times. And they were laughing really hard because they all agreed to that. So, I guess it's more about- what I'm saying is that just consider you guys are important, as well. You're business owners. You have a vision and a mission to fulfill and oftentimes it can be quite exhausting. So think about yourselves in the whole equation.

Andrew 00:07:08 – 00:07:19

Very true. Very true. So, I'm going to tell you what I learned this week. I'm going to add- you know that famous saying that there's only two things in life that are unavoidable? Death and taxes.

Heather 00:07:19 – 00:07:20

Oh, yes.

Andrew 00:07:20 – 00:08:45





There's a third thing. There's a third thing that's coming out. And I'm going to claim this to fame. This is my saying. The third thing is that social media will be changing every week. Social media platforms will be changing every week. The reason I say that is because two weeks ago I went to go and do a presentation for a group of people about LinkedIn. And that morning, they had- and I spoke about this on a previous podcast- that morning as I was about to go onstage, I discovered a whole bunch of new things that LinkedIn had crammed, you know, sent out. And I'm like, "Wow, let me go and change a few slides around." So then yesterday, I was on a radio show doing a call and we were doing a soft-launch for our LinkedIn product that you and I have got called LinkedIn Master Plans. If you want to know about LinkedIn, we'll talk about LinkedIn a little bit further down the track. But as ------- , it was a little bit wild getting this product together. In fact, I think I recorded two or three blocks of videos about LinkedIn because just before Christmas they changed everything around. And as we launched it yesterday and got off the radio show and went to my LinkedIn account to check it out. Wouldn't you know, they changed it all again! Unbelievable. So, that is what I'm going to say: that every time I do a video, I know when they're going to change their platforms because I do a video about it just before they change it.

Heather 00:08:46 – 00:09:05

No it was like me with Google Plus during my talk. You know, I was talking to these women and I was saying, "Oh, yeah, you need to be on Pinterest and it's amazing because it's for women." And then I jumped over to Google Plus and I was showing them that and I go, "Oh, look at that! Look! Google Plus looks just like Pinterest now." And it was literally because they had changed their layout and I didn't know about it and I was on stage.

Andrew 00:09:06 – 00:09:18

I'll tell you, it came out of sort of nowhere. 41 changes. 41 changes Google Plus made that day. So, I'm surprised you even had to log in.

Heather 00:09:19 – 00:09:21

Oh, I was definitely having some fun.

Andrew 00:09:22 – 00:10:01

Yeah, so I'm actually doing a hangout with a Google Plus expert tomorrow for our magazine. We're actually going to put that in the magazine. So if you're looking for that, that's the online footprint magazine. Elaine Lindsey, she's going to go through all of the- not all of the changes but some of the major changes you need to know if you have your business on Google Plus. So that's going to be a fascinating interview that we do on Hangout tomorrow. That's what I learned. I know that for sure, social media platforms are going to constantly change. I don't know where that leaves the average person, if they get frustrated because of all this sort of change. I'm sensing that they do, particularly Facebook is changing on a regular basis.

Heather 00:10:02 – 00:10:06

Hey, you forgot about YouTube! YouTube is brand new right now.





Andrew 00:10:06 – 00:10:23

YouTube changes each time. YouTube, if you want to just narrow it down, YouTube is changing their entire channel. If you haven't got the new channel, that's going to be new. So it's an ongoing learning process for a lot of people and people are getting fed up with that sort of stuff. But, that's just my opinion. That's how it is.

Heather 00:10:23 – 00:10:32

That's how it is. That's why we're here for you guys. We can be foolishly looking silly in front of audiences as changes happen. And then we come back and share our results with you guys.

Andrew 00:10:34 – 00:11:09

It's funny you say that because, you know, I actually enjoy looking silly in front of audiences. That's a strange thing to say. But you know, like, usually when it happens, it's happened within 24 to 48 hours of me talking about it, so I was like, "Hey, this is how quick it's changing and you're one of the first people to see this change live on stage" sort of thing. So I don't mind doing that, but, you know, that's exactly right. That's why we're here. We want to debunk all these changes, so when things roll out... I think, you know, next week we may have to do a bit of a Google Plus or a LinkedIn or even a YouTube podcast just to bring people up to speed with what's going on.

Heather 00:11:10 – 00:11:31

Yeah, great idea actually. That will be good because there is a lot. So, but anyway for this one let's start to finish up the fun statistics series and we'll talk to you guys a little bit about bounce rates and what they are actually in the first place. And what you want them to actually be behaving like for you on your websites and how to improve that.

Andrew 00:11:31 – 00:11:33

Bounce rates. Well, what's a bounce rate? What is a bounce rate?

Heather 00:11:33 – 00:12:20

A bounce rate- ok, so, a bounce rate is still a bit of a hazy thing for me even though I read about them and I understand them. It's a bit strange. So let's just debunk them and talk about what they are and really get them out in the open. So a bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that hit a page and don't visit any other pages within the same site. So, they have just literally come to that page and then they bounce off your site. So basically it's low, your bounce rate is low if they stay on your page and it becomes higher if they leave fast. But let's talk a little bit more about, you know, the lows and the highs of bounce rates and give examples, I suppose- let's start with the high one. A high bounce rate: what does that actually mean and what are some examples of why a bounce rate might be high?

Andrew 00:12:20 – 00:13:25

So before we even start there, a bounce rate is usually indicated in a percentage form, and you usually find this on your Google Analytics. So, if you look into your





Google Analytics account and one of the first things you'll see is- it's either called bounce rate or, what's the other term they use? Page... I'll find out before the end of this call. But bounce rate is measured in a percentage term, so it's percentage of visitors that only see the page that they land on. Now, as far as numbers go, just so you can get an idea in your head: if you're looking at your website analytics right now as we speak, if you have a bounce rate anywhere between 50-80%, that's pretty normal. That's pretty normal. Anything lower than 50%, that's very very extraordinarily good. So you're doing something right or maybe something very wrong. If you have a bounce rate of 85-100%, then you've got to consider a few things that we're going to talk about in this show today.

Heather 00:13:26 – 00:14:24

Yes, good. So high bounce rates. So there's a couple of different scenarios that could happen if you have high bounce rates on your site, because what you were saying is that basically, you want them to be a little bit lower. But let's talk about the highs. So first of all is number one: you're acquiring the wrong kind of traffic to your page. So all that means is that somebody's coming to your site and they're not the right kind of client for you. For whatever reason, they found your site and all the information on your site doesn't speak to them. It's not what they're actually looking for. So then the bounce off, the leave very quickly. The second one is you're acquiring exactly the right kind of traffic to your page. And what that just means is that your page or your website is so good that it's giving the answer the person needs extremely quick. And I know, Andrew, you gave me the example of if it's a restaurant in a certain area and maybe someone is just looking for the phone number, they Google the restaurant, the restaurant comes up, they go onto the site, they get the phone number, and they bounce off. They're gone because they have exactly what they want.

Andrew 00:14:25 – 00:14:26

Exactly. Exactly.

Heather 00:14:26 – 00:14:38

So, high bounce rates are not necessarily terrible for those types of things, but overall you do want people to actually be on there a little bit longer.

Andrew 00:14:38 – 00:14:58

Yeah, so, I think you explained that pretty well. The higher it is- the higher it is, the more possibility that they've either found exactly what they're looking for, which is generally on the low side of things, or it's something that didn't attract their attention. And let's talk about some of that stuff coming up.

Heather 00:14:58 – 00:16:12

Exactly, good. So what we're going to give you guys now is a few items. Actually, nine items that you can focus on to actually improve time spent on your site. So when people come on, making sure that when they get to your site, you have





everything that they're looking for and they're able to very easily find it. Not only that but really enjoy being on your site and spending time on your site as well. So the first one is: you must have easy to read content. Basically what we mean by that is don't use black backgrounds with white text, don't squish a whole bunch of content together and words in one place, don't use a whole bunch of different fonts in one place. You want it to be very very easily read, because we're thinking now- we're not just talking about using a desktop computer anymore or a laptop. We're actually looking at mobile devices as we make, you know, the jump into the whole mobile age which is already happening right now. People are using their mobile phones and they're using their tablets to access your website. So think in terms of ease of even using smaller screens. That's why we're saying easy to read content to make sure those words are very easy to see, very easy to read and don't frustrate the visitor to your site.

Andrew 00:16:12 – 00:16:19

And maybe even the font- maybe make the font the right size, not tiny minute font that people can't read, because they'll disappear pretty quick.

Heather 00:16:19 – 00:16:39

Yeah, exactly right. I know sometimes people want to be creative with their fonts and, you know, you can in very specific areas of your site, like in some of your headlines and some of your graphics. But overall don't be cutesy, look at how to... you want universal ease of reading on your site. So that's number one. What's number two, Andrew?

Andrew 00:16:40 – 00:16:47

Number two is clean navigation. Clean navigation. So what does that mean? Basically, you're going to fill me in.

Heather 00:16:47 – 00:16:52

Ok, you're asking me? No, I want to hear from you. You tell me.

Andrew 00:16:52 – 00:17:26

You always do this to me. So, clean navigation is basically having buttons and menu items that are very clear and precise. Tell people what it is that they are looking for so they know when they're searching around your site that there's a specific reason they need to click on those buttons. The navigation you also have on your footer needs to be clear and precise as well. And any other links or ads that you have on your page needs to tell people what it is that they're clicking on. Otherwise, if they're confused, they may not go and click on those buttons and they'll leave. What else do you want to add to that?





Heather 00:17:27 – 00:18:47

Yeah, so, I'll give you some examples of that. So if somebody comes into your site and you think you want a name in your menu, for example, in your main top navigation or your menu, you want to name your blog something creative. Like, maybe mine might be "Heather's Hobo" or "Heather's Hub", "Heather's Hub", for example. Look, I've seen this a lot. So I'm calling my blog "Heather's Hub". If a visitor came to my site, first of all, are they even going to know my name Heather and who I am? And secondly, what is a hub in the first place? It's not a universal understanding. So when we say "clean navigation", if it's a blog- say it's a blog or you can go as far as saying it's latest news, for example. If you're offering freebies or resources, just say that. "Free resources" or "resources". If you're going to be talking about your events, just say "Events". So it's simplistic. You really want somebody to know what they're going to click on. They know what it is they're going to click on and they know what they're going to get once they get to the other side of that page from your menu. So that's all I mean by that: a website, absolutely you want to be creative and absolutely you want to have your brand there, but you can do that in the language that you use and some of the posts and some of the more conversational approaches. But with the actual way of leading somebody through your website, you want that to be ultra clear.

Andrew 00:18:48 – 00:18:57

Very good. Awesome. Number three, number three: immediately obvious what you do and what you can offer.

Heather 00:18:58 – 00:19:39

So important. If you can't literally in a second- if somebody can't figure out what you can offer to them, the whole "what's in it for me" thing, they're going to leave because they have no idea. So again, that's why the whole clean navigation thing ties into this because through your navigation and your menu, you can also illustrate what you do. But really using, you know, graphics or information on your home page to actually show what you do is fantastic. So if you're a coach and you have events and you have, say, private mentoring sessions literally stick that on your home page. "How would you like to work with me? Attend an event or book in a private session?" It's literally as easy as that, you don't have to get much more creative.

Andrew 00:19:40 – 00:19:42

Very simple explanation, I love it.

Heather 00:19:43 – 00:20:57

Very simple. I mean, look at all the websites where you go to buy, like, Wordpress themes or Plug-ins or if you go, you know, if you're going to go to an event or learn a certain thing from an online expert, their pages will very clearly show you what you're going to learn from them and how to engage with them. Whether they're offering a course or they're offering phone sessions or event tickets, but you pretty much know straight away if you're going to some of these more optimized sites what's in it for you when you get there. So that's that one. Now, the next one is: keep your distractions down to a minimum. So that means any animations, any bright colored clashing graphics on your pages, you want to keep





those distractions down. So again, we're talking about simplicity here. We're talking about leading somebody in a journey of how to actually engage with you next. So, your phone number's important, telling them very clearly what they can do with you, whether it's buying a ticket or if it's engaging in a private session with you. And everything in your site should literally be pushing people into that area of understanding what to do next. Anything that is not supporting that is a distraction.

Andrew 00:20:57 – 00:22:05

I want to tell you one other thing about distractions. I'm only bringing this up because I know I do it and I know other people do as well, and that is some of those auto-play videos that you're not expecting on a site. And, you know, you might be browsing at a work place or, you know, you might be at a place where you don't want that noise to come out of your computer. So you've clicked on a website and all the sudden this auto-play comes up and all you can hear is this music before the site has even loaded. And I know if I'm in that situation, I'm clicking the X button as soon as I can to get off that page. And what that does is it raises my bounce rate. It's telling me, like, I may come back later to check it out but right then and there, all I want to do is stop the music. And I don't know where to stop the music except the quickest action is that X button at the top of your browser. So I'm not a big fan of auto-plays for everything. There are times when you want to use auto-plays for your videos, but some of those websites that do auto-plays for no reason is just a problem for bounce rate, I think.

Heather 00:22:06 – 00:23:25

Yeah and I agree with you, it annoys me. I X-out of them as quickly as what you said, as well. Keep that down to, you know, a minimum. Don't use that if you don't have to. The other thing, too, is, you know, we've talked about pop-ups before so the little pop-up boxes that come in for your opt-ins or pop-ups for live chat with a representative or pop-ups for leaving, you know, a voice message. All those sorts of things: use those sparingly and think about where it makes the most sense to put them if you are going to use them. Pop-ups nowadays you can actually control when they pop up. They can pop up when somebody's going to leave your site, rather than right when they get to your site. So it's probably a better thing to take into consideration. Also, for the live chat: is it really needed on your home page, or is it needed somewhere deeper in the funnel or deeper to- if somebody actually starts clicking into your site looking to buy and they're actually looking and researching the qualifications of you or the characteristics of the program you have to offer. Maybe that's a better page or area of your site to stick those sorts of pop-ups. So just be thinking, "Do the distractions that I have- the pop-ups and the bells and the whistles- are they helping somebody's journey through my site to get to know me more or are they actually taking away from that?" And are you using them just because you've seen them on other people's sites and think it's a good idea?

Andrew 00:23:35 – 00:23:40

Hey I'm just on there and I haven't seen these but you may have come across it: have you ever seen a help desk pop-up come in at, say, fifteen to twenty seconds after somebody's been reading the site?





Heather 00:23:41 – 00:23:42

I have.

Andrew 00:23:42 – 00:24:10

You have? Ok. I haven't. And I was just thinking about that, like, if I'm on a site... If I'm on a site and I'm looking around and there's already a chat box or a support button there, sometimes I may say, well, it's almost implying, "You're going to need support very soon. Here's the button for you." But maybe you could have it so it pops up later after you've been on the site for a minute or two, and then they can say, "Here's the chat box, if you need anything else, click here and ask us on live chat.

Heather 00:24:11 – 00:24:36

Yeah, and I think that's the theme with this particular point, is to do it a little bit later in the journey of somebody visiting your site rather than straight away. Imagine you have an auto-play video, you have a pop-up opt-in, you have a pop-up live chat; you'd be so overly overwhelmed and you just still don't even know what the site's all about yet because you're just seeing those things. So that's why it's not a good idea. You just don't want them all coming at somebody at once. Cool, so what's the next one?

Andrew 00:24:36 – 00:24:53

The next one... the next one is something that is- and this term has only popped up in the last two or three years really in main stream- and that's a thing called responsive design. What the heck is that? Give us a run-down of responsive design. What is that all about?

Heather 00:24:54 – 00:25:17

I love it. Ok, so, there's two words that I use quite next to each other: one of them is responsive design and one of them is the mobile design. So all that means is that your website displays a different version based on the device that somebody's using to access it. A mobile version of your website is a completely different-looking website that displays on your mobile phone, for example, or your iPad.

Andrew 00:25:18 – 00:25:37

So, I just want to jump in here. I've got a website that I can look at on my mobile phone, right? I can log into Safari or Chrome or whatever it is and I can look at my normal website. It looks the same on my mobile phone as it does on the computer. Is that a responsive design?

Heather 00:25:37 – 00:26:22

No, no. That's a good question. So that's just your website but, if you think about it, compressed smaller down onto a mobile device. It's just a little bit harder to use. You have to pinch your screen open to actually read the menu. It just means more actions for the person that's visiting your site to actually navigate through it. The mobile one is just literally designed to... it's a very different-looking site. It's something that pops up on your mobile phone and has bigger buttons of





navigation. Responsive design is where your site actually shrinks depending on the actual device you're accessing it from. So it might actually reposition the columns on the right-hand side or how different things on your site display to be optimized for the device you're actually seeing it on.

Andrew 00:26:23 – 00:26:33

Alright, so here's a bit of a techy question: if someone's got a website and they want to turn it into a responsive design, is that a bit of an effort? What's needed for that sort of thing?

Heather 00:26:33 – 00:27:15

You need a good coder. You can either get a theme from, like, Theme Forest or some of the other Word Press- if you use Word Press- some of the other Word Press theme providers. Even Woo Themes, for example, they are now selling themes that are responsive, which means that they do this whole thing where they change the shape and the size to actually be optimized for the device the person's using your site from. Or, you could take your current site and you could go and find a coder and say, "I want this site turned into a responsive site". So that coder just has to go in and actually update some of the files in your theme or your website to actually make it show differently on different devices. So you can use what you have, but you just need somebody that's very good at this stuff to actually go in and help you out with it.

Andrew 00:27:15 – 00:27:17

Is it worth it? Is it worth doing that, do you think?

Heather 00:27:17 – 00:28:02

Oh, it will be. Oh yes it will. You know, you and I have talked about this, that everything we've been seeing right now says that by 2015 that every single website is really actually going to be accessed on mobile devices more than the old desktop sort of thing. That's just because we all sit around and we play with our apps, you know, we do our little Facebook apps, social media apps, we're checking our emails from our devices. Now, when you get emails, you want to be able to click on links in emails and go to a website that's optimized from within that device for whatever you're meant to do, whether it's to buy stuff or whatnot. So it's going to be very very important. People are making the move to that, that's why this word responsive design versus mobile design sites are a big buzz word right now because people know this. Business owners are seeing this happen already, so it is important, yes.

Andrew 00:28:02 – 00:28:04

You are such a knowledgeable creature.

Heather 00:28:04 – 00:28:13

Oh, it was just, you know, a little research I had to do lately for a little presentation. Thanks for that, though. No, it is fascinating.

Andrew 00:28:14 – 00:28:21





Well while we're talking about design, let's go into the next topic which is good design. What's good design got to do with bounce rate?

Heather 00:28:22 – 00:29:13

This makes me laugh because I know that when I first started studying, you know, Internet marketing, gosh, what was it, more than six years ago now probably when I really started getting interested. Everyone would say, "Oh, yeah, these really big ugly sites, you know. It doesn't matter. They can be ugly, they just need to have all these special sort of conversion tactics in them." And what's happening now is those sites aren't working. People are totally going the entire different way and they are expecting good-looking design. They want ease of navigation, like what we were saying. You know, great buttons and graphics and an easy way of the user scanning your eye through the site. So less copy, more showing the person what's in it for them, benefits and, you know, videos and samples and demos and things like that. Clean, good-looking design is definitely the way of the future.

Andrew 00:29:14 – 00:30:14

So when you talk about demos and stuff, these days- I think you mentioned earlier Theme Forest and there's a whole range of other sites that sell templates for Word Press, specifically Word Press sites. They all have demos on it, right? So you can go look at how... and the demos are actually live demos, right? So you can click on the buttons and see how those sites interact, how the buttons drop down, how do the colors mingle, how do the sliders move up when they slide and all this other stuff. So when you're thinking about good design, you don't have to rely now anymore on a programmer's idea of good design. You can go and check out these templates that are out there and see what you like. And you'll quickly see, because what they also tell you is how many people have purchased and what sort of ratings that each of those designs has. And it's a good measure just to say, "Well, if there's a whole bunch of people buying it, then it must be good design and it must be pretty popular."

Heather 00:30:15 – 00:31:10

It is. And you can very easily get somebody on, like, ODesk.com who specializes in Theme Forest themes or Woo Themes or whatever Word Press theme that you're using to actually go in and install it for you, you know, on your site to replace either what you have or if you have a new site that you want to do. You can get them to set that up for you. The thing, too, about good design- and I will stress this- is that be very careful about just going to a designer and saying, "I want a good-designed, good-looking site." Because they are a designer, they are not a strategist. They are not a marketer. They don't think like a marketer does. You ideally want a strategist or a marketer, somebody who actually knows where you're supposed to put stuff on your site working in conjunction with a designer. Some strategists have designers on their team, some don't. But working together as a unit to make sure that everything is in the right place but it also is designed to look really well.

Andrew 00:31:11 – 00:31:26





Very well put. Very well put. Let's go, number seven is speed. Speed. Tell us about speed. What's a another little story at the end of this one, when you talk about speed. Go for it.

Heather 00:31:26 – 00:32:03

So speed. All that means is that you want your site to load as fast as possible for somebody that's coming to your site. And the more plug-ins and the more, you know, things and customization you have going on on your website, the trickier it can be to make it load faster. And, you know, we're impatient creatures nowadays and we expect clean, good-looking sites that load really fast. And if we have to wait around even for a second, we'll leave. So, it's not like the good old days of the modem, we'll all sit there for thirty minutes and have, you know, we're happily waiting for the page to load because it's all very exciting. Now it's a second and we're off.

Andrew 00:32:04 – 00:33:31

Yeah, really. Really. So when we started talking about analytics, I went through a bunch of my sites- you know, between us, I think you and I have got about 150 sites. Somewhere in between, something like that. We have a whole range of sites. And looking at that, looking at our bounce rate, statistics of some of our main sites, you know, we're doing pretty well. We're around the 50% mark, which is actually pretty good. So I'm very impressed with that. I'm looking at one of my other sites, which I know that I've had since 2010, and it's a regular site. It's being contributed to every couple of weeks at least, if not more than that. It has a lot of bells and whistles, maybe too many bells and whistles that are just sitting there. And the bounce rate on that site is- and I discovered this probably around six weeks ago, so I'm actually in the process of re-changing all of this and putting a brand new site with the responsive theme and all of the stuff we've just spoken about- but the bounce rate on that site is 87.5%, which is terrible. So it's one of those things that I knew, I recognized, you know, as soon as I saw it going that way, I needed to change it. So I'm in the middle of changing that. But if I didn't know, if I didn't measure, I would think the site was OK but what the statistics are telling me is that 85 out of 100 people get to the first page and go, "Get me out of here" and they're gone. So it's a big wake-up call.

Heather 00:33:31 – 00:33:35

Yeah, think about the improvements and what's going to start to happen once you address that.

Andrew 00:33:35 – 00:33:56

Yeah, exactly. I have thousands of visitors to this page a month. So thousands of people right now are just going and leaving. They're not looking at what else I've got to offer, which saddens me a little bit. I will rectify that. I'm looking to change the way. So there you go. That's my little story about speed.

Heather 00:33:57 – 00:35:35

So with speed, you guys, again there are tools and resources you can test your site in to find out and it gets a little bit techier so I don't think we're going to go into them on this one. But if you just Google- again our favorite places like ODesk- or





you could just Google "test the speed of my site" in Google, you'll start to find some resources. Even go to YouTube and type that in, "how do I test the speed of my site?", you're going to get all sorts of videos that come up and teach you a little bit more about this particular topic. It will be getting more and more important, again, as sites are going to need to be optimized for mobile devices, you're using the 3G network and external networks, you need them to be fast and clean. So that is important. The next one- look, I love this one because I'm always really anal about this one when dealing with our own actual web team. I'm a link-clicking machine, so basically, this point is: make sure you have your external links in your site open in new windows. What that means is that if you have social media buttons on your site, if you're linking to external websites or blogs or mentioning them in your posts, you want those links to open in a new window. And the reason why is it means your site still stays open in that particular browser window, meaning that people are not automatically taken off your site. They just are looking at, you know, what you told them to go to in another window. So, it is important. Your links that are internal of your site should still stay, of course, inside the same window. Anything external- just think of it as a rule of thumb. If I'm sending people off my site, I need to have a new window opened in my browser.

Andrew 00:35:35 – 00:36:00

I guess when you think about it, it's pretty straightforward. It makes sense, but so many people just change that link opening up and suddenly, "Oh, where'd that website go?" and then, you know, they're onto Facebook and they're like, "Oh, forgot about it." And then it's like, "What happened? Oh yeah, I was looking at this site a long time ago but I can't remember how I linked it" and "How do I get back?"

Heather 00:36:02 – 00:36:10

Yep, that's exactly the reason why this is incredibly important. We're almost coming up to our close. We're on the last point.

Andrew 00:36:11 – 00:36:18

I know, the last point is: split up long content chunks. What does that mean? Tell me about that.

Heather 00:36:19 – 00:37:24

Ok, cool. So as we are now engaging more with multi-media and images and videos and apps and tweets and quick little pieces of content, seeing a huge page of written content is actually quite scary. Whereas you see that and you think, "Oh it's just all to overwhelming. I am out of here." The best way to handle big bits of content is to break them up into different chunks. And you do that with numbered lists or bullet points, different sized fonts. Again, not too many of them, like we said earlier, but if you break it up with different headings or headlines throughout, you think in terms of, "Can I chunk this bit of content together? Does it make sense to have this bit of content together? Then how can I graphically make it stand out from the chunk that's above?" So just think in terms of that. You never want to slop down a copy-and-paste from a word document and just paste that into your page without any formatting at all. It's just going to be way too much for





somebody to absorb and they're not going to be able to scan it, as now what you need to have is- readable content needs to be scanable.

Andrew 00:37:25 – 00:37:49

Yeah, break it up, break it up with your images and videos and all that other stuff to make sure that the people- as soon as they see it, once it's over, they're like, "OK, I can manage this." Otherwise... and it's almost like if you've ever been to a Terms and Conditions page of most websites, that is just non-chunked content that usually, you look at it and go, "My God, this is way too much to read."

Heather 00:37:50 – 00:37:52

And there's probably a reason for that, isn't there?

Andrew 00:37:53 – 00:38:12

Exactly, privacy policy and all that other stuff is all chunked together closely so that people go, "I don't want to read this" and I think that's why they do it. It's all chunked together so that you don't want to read it because it's just a whole bunch of legal mumbo jumbo. So that's a perfect example of non-chunked content.

Heather 00:38:14 – 00:38:41

Exactly. By the way, there's a great tool to use that is- it's actually free, if you guys want to test it out for a little while. It's a heat map tool, and you can stick this on your site and basically see visually where people are clicking on your site. You're actually going to get an understanding of your most popular areas not only in your menu, but on each and every one of your pages as far as where people are looking and participating within your content.

Andrew 00:38:41 – 00:38:42

How do they measure that?

Heather 00:38:43 – 00:38:56

It's basically this map. It's an overlay of your site, so it literally- if you think about a heat map or if you're... gosh, I think of the 1980s sort of clothes where you put your finger on and you would heat up.

Andrew 00:38:56 – 00:38:59

Or the... what are they called? Hyper...

Heather 00:39:00 – 00:39:29

Hyper something. When you put your finger on it like mood rings or something like that, where the hottest area is a different color, like a bright blue. And then the colder areas would be, you know, like a white or something like that. It does the same thing. It's an overlay that goes on each and every page of your site and it's showing you with heat- which means are the most popular pages of your site- where people are hanging out. And it's important because that is the key area of your site where they think that's what you're all about.





Andrew 00:39:30 – 00:39:32

So it checks your mouse clicks and stuff like that, right?

Heather 00:39:32 – 00:40:54

Your mouse clicks and your movements and it's all based on your mouse. Exactly right. And the one that's really great, again, that you can try out for free is called crazyegg.com. Crazyegg.com. And they're doing a great job with their online marketing right now. They're all over YouTube with ads and so you may have even seen them already at the point you've heard it from us. But Crazyegg. You know, it might be worth a try for you guys to stick that on your site, though some of you that are especially a little bit more techy might want to give this a go. And you'll get to know a little bit more about your visitors and what they're actually, again, thinking you're about. I say it that way because whatever they're clicking on and whatever they're engaging with is the bit of your site that they're interested in and think that you represent. And I'll give you an example of that, you know, I was really shocked on one of my sites. I was thinking that they were actually finding this whole other side of what I stood for, you know, coming to be for branding advice, for example. But in actuality, they're coming to me for a very specific type of Facebook advice. You know, it's quite interesting when you start to actually understand why people are coming to you and what they're engaging with on your site. All that means is that you can give them more of that information and you can create your products around that information and start to really, you know, again, give the market what they want. If you don't know it, how can you do it?

Andrew 00:40:54 – 00:41:32

That's right. And that's why it's so important about all these metrics, like, know what they're doing. Know what they're finding out. One of the most popular blog posts is still about a Coca-Cola product that I wrote two and a half years ago and I'm still getting the most traffic from that from all of that time ago. Even today- and this is a website about social media and how to use social media for your business- and I wrote an article about Coca-Cola and how ------ about two and a half years ago and it's still my most popular blog post. But I know that because I look at my analytics. So what I've done is I've gone to write some other additional stuff with Coca-Cola in it just to play off that traffic that's coming in there already.

Heather 00:41:33 – 00:42:12

Exactly. And now I'm doing the same with mine, too, and I've noticed that some of the things we've talked about in the last few bits of our series in this podcast series are using video, you know, using video. You know, I've started using video because it keeps people on the site longer, they get to know who I am more, they get to know what the next steps are to take with me. Thus, you know, lowering certain statistics and raising others, all the good things that we want to have happen. And as I guess as we finish up, let's just have a quick little chat about some of the key things that you personally- and I'll say what I personally remember from these last, what was it, seven of these that we have done?

Andrew 00:42:13 – 00:42:16

Yeah, seven. Seven of these. So ....





Heather 00:42:16 – 00:42:20

What are some of the key statistics and key points that you'd want somebody to take away from this series?

Andrew 00:42:21 – 00:43:54

You know what, a lot of it can sound similar. So just remember that if you think you've heard it before, a lot of the same principles apply. Think about how the process goes when somebody comes to your website. They come to your website- what is it that you want to make them do? You want to make them stay on your page as long as possible. You want them to click through to a certain page or a "buy now" button so that's your conversion rate. Do you want them to sign up for your newsletter? And when they do that, when you send an email out, what sort of open rates... what sort of open rates are you having when people receive that email? Are they actually reading the email or is it just a waste of time? And so inside your email, what are the click-through rates inside an email that you're having when people actually get that email? When they come back to your page after doing that full circle, then you want to look at what sort of average time are they spending on your site? How much are the visitors really going back, as well? So, you know, it's a cycle that we try to follow from start to finish and we end up back at your website. So you get there, you sign them up, you send them an email, you drive them back to your site and get them to know more about you and spend time on your site, and we try to follow that cycle so that it makes sense. Just think of it in a big picture term. You don't have to know every single minute rate that's there, that we've talked about, but just know there's a whole bunch of different rates that can affect all of that flow of traffic.

Heather 00:43:55 – 00:45:03

Yeah, and I think I'd love to leave you guys with: just be very, very clear on who you are and what you're actually offering. Really, really clear. And give somebody one way of taking that next step with you, not ten million ways, you know, not dozens of ways. But one way. What's the one thing that they can do to start to get to know you a little bit more? We refer to that as a lead-generation funnel or a conversion funnel. It's that whole thing of: they come to your site, you give them content so that they stay around, they get to know you a little bit more. Now that they like you, they're going to opt-in. Make sure that the opt-in form is friendly and happy and does all the things we talked about. Get them into your email funnel and communicate with them. And everything you talk to them about should not be distracting; it should be clear, concise, really the whole "what's in it for them". Really think about the client, don't just create noise. It's no longer about creating noise, it's about creating valuable content, delivering it over time, making it all about the site's visitor. Yes, you can be creative but know when to be creative. So, wow, how fun! We're coming to a close.

Andrew 00:45:04 – 00:45:07

We'll have to do another series like this.

Heather 00:45:07 – 00:45:09

Yeah, I'm enjoying these.





Andrew 00:45:10 – 00:45:20

Alright, so I don't know what we're going to do next week. We'll have to come up with something good. Maybe we'll do ... jump back into social, maybe we'll come up with something completely, randomly new.

Heather 00:45:20 – 00:45:21

As we do.

Andrew 00:45:21 – 00:46:08

As we do. But thanks for coming. If you've got any comments, make sure you come and visit us at autopilotyourbusiness.com/podcasts or go and leave us a review or a comment on iTunes or Podomatic or any of your favorite podcatchers. We're pretty much going out on all of those services and platforms right now so leave us a review. Tell us what you think and if you have any questions, any feedback, you can always find us on those sites. Connect with us socially, too, AYBsocial.com. Www.AYBsocial.com. Autopilot your business. AYBsocial.com. And all of our social links are there, too.

Heather 00:46:09 – 00:46:28

Yes, and always, if you guys want to get links to all the things we've talked to you guys about today like Crazy Egg and some of the other resources, and ODesk and all that good stuff, stop on by to the website autopilotyourbusiness.com/podcasts. And we have a page in there called Resources where we put these links, but you can also find the links directly under this podcast itself.

Andrew 00:46:29 – 00:46:32

Alright, stay warm in sunny, cold Sydney.

Heather 00:46:32 – 00:46:37

Will do. Keep cool in hot Palm Springs!

Andrew 00:46:34 – 00:46:42

Yeah, I'm cool. Cool cat. Alright, I'll talk to you on the next podcast.

Heather 00:46:42 – 00:46:43

Sounds good, thanks guys.

Narrator 00:46:49 – 00:47:22

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first officer speaking. On behalf of your captains Andrew McCauley and Heather Porter, we would like to thank you for taking the journey with us to auto-pilot your business. You are now closer to putting your own business on auto-pilot using the Internet. Of course, if you would like to rack up some frequent flyer points, visit our website at www.autopilotyourbusiness.com or check us out on Facebook at facebook.com/autopilotyourbusiness. These frequent flyer points are totally useless, but the information is gold. Until we fly again, happy travels.





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