Loading ...It’s not an uncommon problem. You’ve got an elegantly designed website, with no offensive elements that you can detect. You’ve undergone search engine optimisation to the best of your ability. Somehow, your pages have acquired a horribly high bounce rate. It’s a disaster.
Believe it or not, but elements of your page could be the reason for your bounce rate. If your page has too many visual barriers, your site’s users could be finding it too much work to peruse. You need to analyse what it is about your page that is putting people off. Your SEO consultant can assist with this, and you can discuss barriers with us at SEO Consult Australia.
The attention given to a web page flows kind of like a river. Internet users start by scanning the top of the page, letting their eyes wander down over text and graphics until they find what they want. The way this attention flows can have a big influence over whether the user stays on your page or jumps back to the SERPs. If it flows too fast, they don’t have time to absorb your information. If the flow is too slow, they get stuck and turn around. The flow needs to be carefully controlled, and the way that most SEO pros do this is with careful use of barriers.
The barriers that block your page include:
1. Page fold. This concept comes from the newspaper industry, specifically from pages that printed on broad news sheets. The editors discovered that articles that appeared on the top half of the page, above the fold in the big sheet of newspaper, were more popular. They got more attention because more people could be bothered to read them. Reading below the fold takes effort, both for newspapers and on the net.
2. Large images. It might look great on your web designer’s screen, but a large image might not be a great idea for your site’s pages. Images present a significant barrier on a web page, particularly if they are large ones.
Images can be used to guide user attention with great effect. A page full of text, for example, will benefit from a medium-sized image somewhere near, but not actually at, the top. This breaks up the text a little, giving the user’s brain a short rest and giving the page a feeling of having breathing space. If the image is too large, however, that break becomes too long and the user’s attention can wander. This is something you definitely don’t want to happen.
On a technical note, large images usually take a while to download, so it’s best to minimise their file size where possible. Large images should be used with caution on pages, and it’s best to consult your search engine optimisation consultant.
3. White space. Just as with images, some white space can be used to control the flow of the user’s attention. Too much white space is daunting, like a desert that sucks the user’s attention. There needs to be the right balance of white and text.
Related posts:
- Look out for Imagezilla
- The importance of ‘above the fold’
- Feng shui for websites
- Internet users expect to see big brands on social media websites
- One way to get internet users to recognise and trust your brand
Tags: SEO, SEO Consult Australia, seo consultant
Link to us
If you want to link to this blog, copy and paste the following HTML code to your website.
