December 12, 2009 84 Comments

Revisit Your Site Carefully

ChrisBrogan.com

Yep, that’s my website. After complaining about someone else’s poor design, I decided to throw stones at myself and see what I’d find when I squinted at my own site. The results weren’t really pretty. With just a visual scan, I found all the above-mentioned issues:

What’s Wrong With My Site (my POV)

Quick note. I found the following in my Google Analytics: my bounce rate is exceptionally high, that people don’t spend a lot of time on site, and that they’re not clicking what I want.

  • My calls to action are too plentiful.
  • My subscription options are too plentiful.
  • I’ve given no real “path” for my posts and your learning.

In sum, it’s poorly designed from an information design perspective. Further, it’s not an especially good sales piece in that regard. Finally, it really needs some tuning up.

What My Site Should be Doing

The purpose of my site (for those who visit it directly) is to encourage new relationships and to convert people into either subscribers or buyers (of my services). I don’t think my site does an adequate job of the later, and could stand to do a better job of the former.

What Should I Do?

What I’ll plan to do is revisit the reasons for every piece of my site’s design.

  • I’m pleased with the thin header image, but might swipe out the graphic.

  • I think the pages I display at the top of the page make sense, but I might “highlight” the two that I mention in this image.
  • I will edit how I call for subscriptions, but will leave the email subscription prominently on top.
  • I might remove my newsletter subscription option from the top-left, and make that part of a subsequent page.

And You?

Now, with what I’ve covered above as a backdrop, what does YOUR site do, and how do you think it stands up when you squint at it? Feel free to leave a URL to your site in the comments section.

Related posts:

  1. Subscribing to This Site
  2. Is Your Site Well Marked
  3. Tripwolf Launches a Nifty Travel Site
  4. Best Social Media Advice From This Site
  5. What Do YOU Think People Want From Your Site

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  • http://www.dishevelledstars.com/ Amanda

    My site looks like any other blogger site. I don't feel techie-smart enough to fix it, and it's certainly lacking a focused topic.

  • http://andybeard.eu AndyBeard

    I was just linking through on a real-time search post but couldn't help noticing…

    The most important valuable link on your site has messed up anchor text

    chrisbrogan.com

    From your header.

    Why not have “Chris Brogan – Social Media Consultant”

    First Link Priority – first link on the page to any individual page is what counts

  • http://www.sebastiankeil.de Sebastian Keil

    I always wonder why you use the lijit search. Not that it is bad or anything, but it feels like you are making a point – I am just not sure what that is…

  • http://www.Spidvid.com Jeremy Campbell

    I think all too often blog and website owners are so focused on the content, development, and design that they forget about the most important aspect which is usability. The best feature in the world means nothing if it isn't easy to find and use. Sometimes it's the smallest tweaks that can make the largest impacts.

    Look forward to any changes you may make to this site Chris, and it's amazing all of the feedback you've been given by your loyal followers and readers. Fantastic suggestions everyone!

  • http://thedreamingcafe.com/ Sandy Dempsey

    Thanks for a very insightful review of your own site. Since I am redesigning my own site (http://thedreamingcafe.com) to give it a more professional, polished look, this helps a lot.

  • http://allanbarryreports.com/blog/ Allan

    Hello Chris,

    I just posted 5 tweets on Twitter, you can find me @allanbreports, discussing a retweeting issue I have, that I think may be part of the reason you are seeing the high bounce rate.

    I'm kind of a slow reader, but I read a lot. On Twitter I don't follow thousands, I try to find those that I'm really interested in what they have to say to follow, otherwise my Twitter stream would be too much for me to keep up with.

    Several people I follow, also follow you, so often whenever you put out a new blog post I will get a bunch of links to your post. But it won't say in the tweet that it is your piece, so I click on it and it takes me to your blog, I've already read the piece, so I leave right away. One guy sometimes even sends a link before you do on Twitter.

    This has kind of been annoying me, so thats why I did my mini-rant on Twitter. All these links don't do you any favours because I think I'm going to a blog post from the other person, then I get to your blog and I already read the new blog post. It also does a disservice to them as well because I think they have written an interesting new piece on their own blog.

    One guy in particular, who I think is a seriel linker/retweeter, I don't want to mention his name, does this with your pieces and several other high-profile bloggers (who I already follow) and so I'm getting multi-tweets for them as well. It is getting to the point I may have to stop following him and that sucks because I really enjoy reading his own original blog posts.

    I think some bloggers read way to much about SEO and how to increase their followers on Twitter, and other social media, and lose site of the fact people are interested in what they have to say.

    Just my two cents.

    Best of the season.

    Allan

  • http://snowcrashing.com Antonella

    Chris,
    I don't think your call to actions are a problem per se, as much as not having more filters to navigate your content. The Topics cloud is too generic (and has a huge uncategorized), the Recent entries are buried and not prominent (they blend in with the sidebar). You need more ways to market your posts (top posts, most commented, etc…you know 1000 times better than I do).

    I'd also try to segment to see if there are groups with higher B-rates (are the new users the culprit because they can't find more content as in my hypothesis, or are ur loyal readers the bouncers, because maybe all they want is to read the latest post and go…cough cough, here I am).

    My 2c,
    Antonella

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  • http://www.ivanwalsh.com Ivan Walsh

    I had the same thoughts. It might even be less than 20%, maybe 10%, 5%?

  • http://www.ivanwalsh.com Ivan Walsh

    Excellent breakdown Amy,

    I’d consider removing the Speaking and Work With Me from above the fold.

    Why? Because, those who are likely to hire Chris know who he is and will go straight to the contact page. They don’t need to be convinced.

    It might be more effective to push the newsletter (which is remarkable stuff) and capture them here.

    Finally, I’d remove the RSS feed to the footer. RSS is for IT savvy folks not the mainstream. I’ve worked in IT for 20 years and only now have started to use it. It’s fine, but email is light years ahead.

    Two suggestions: look at how Amit at http://www.Labnol.org does it and how Darren Rowse uses his footer.

  • http://www.richdixon.net/bouncingback/ Rich Dixon

    http://www.richdixon.net/bouncingback/

    Weaknesses: high bounce rate, lack of direction, too few comments.

    My site isn't focused enough–a visitor doesn't get a clear picture of what's available, who I am, or what they're supposed to do next. It works well for folks who are accustomed to the blog-type environment, but that's not all of my readers.

    And–I'm bad at the “call to action” stuff. Need to improve that, I think.

  • http://www.socialmouths.com socialmouths

    Thanks for the advice Ken, I installed ClickTale yesterday and have already a few items to reconsider…

  • http://www.mackcollier.com/ Mack COllier

    I can vouch for Amy's suggestions as I took many of them to heart in redesigning my consulting site and Amy was HUGE help to me. Up till the redesign I rarely got business leads from the site, now I get them regularly. Seriously if your company needs website help, definitely contact Amy.

    BTW here's what the site looks like now, and you can several of Amy's suggestions above playing into the structure of the site:

    http://www.mackcollier.com

  • http://www.reactorr.com/blog/ reactorr

    A fellow by the name of Chris Staples (ReThink) once explained his thoughts on effective advertising by stating that for it to be effective you need it to carry one message. He further explained with the analogy of ping pong balls. If you throw one to someone, they'll probably catch it, but when you throw 5 or 6 at the same time they probably won't catch any. I think in this case you can have multiple offerings, but prominence is a factor as well.

  • http://www.mackcollier.com/ Mack COllier

    Ok Chris first, I really like your site because I think you are one of the few people that do social media consulting/strategy that actually do even a decent job of promoting what they do. So many people in this space are scared to death of self-promoting, but you do it well.

    If there's one thing that I think you could improve on the site, it's in making it more obvious who you are and what you do. When I did my site, I did it with the mindset that no one knew who I was, or what I did. Because I get a great deal of referrals, and those people that are referred to me often have no clue who I am. So they'll come to my site to check me out.

    For example, on your site you have a tab for 'Speaking', I have 'Book Mack to Speak'. You have 'Work With Me', I have one for 'Social Media Consulting'.

    And perhaps the biggest I see, there's no way to email you directly above the fold that I can see. There should be a one-click that lets me email you. Notice on my site I have that, plus a one-click to give me a call through Google Voice. If there was ONE change I would suggest you make, it would be to add a small 'Email Me' area right above your signup area on the far right column. As Amy pointed out, you do an exceptional job of asking for email/RSS/newsletter signups.

    BTW thanks again Chris for doing this, from reading your post I am now seeing a lot of changes I need to make on my own site ;)

  • http://www.designsuccessu.com Gail Doby

    Hi Chris,

    Perfect timing. My partner's and my afternoon meeting is prep for tomorrow's call with our webmaster and we're getting ready for a major overhaul. I appreciate you sharing your warts with us, and that will help us address ours.

    PS – Mari Smith was saying great things about you last week!
    http://www.DesignSuccessU.com

  • http://twitter.com/swoodruff Steve Woodruff

    So, what this says to me is that THE best re-design anyone can have for their blog is just to get Amy to make comments!

  • TheMogulMom

    Hi Chris,
    I love this post – and this is something I do frequently. My bounce rate is 2.72 – and that's common for my site. When people visit, they stay awhile. But I'm working on getting MORE visitors on a consistent basis…always a work in progress.

    Last summer, I watched a video from Tim Ferriss at Wordcamp and implemented some of the things he talked about and they impacted by site traffic, bounce rate and subscribers very positively. I wrote a post about it here and I would recommend #1 and #3 for you. :D

    Here's the post: http://www.themogulmom.com/2009/07/tim-ferriss-…

    I love Copyblogger's popular series “Landing Page Makeovers” with Roberta Rosenberg. Do check it out if you haven't already. http://www.copyblogger.com/landing-page-makeove…

    Thanks for letting us take a peek at your site analysis – such a great learning experience for you and us!!

    Heather

  • greeblemonkey

    I just launched a redesign this month. (http://www.greeblemonkey.com/) I *hope* I addressed many things that were wrong with my site before. I do know one thing I gained that is a problem with the new site is that it is too wide for some monitors. But – I wanted a large photo changeable Flickr header (that didn't look like a Flickr header) since I feature my photography so often – and the size dictated by that function. But, since my company designs (health education research) web sites, I am constantly rethinking my blog. – Posts like this are good reminders to always be thinking.

  • http://www.doitmyselfblog.com GlendaWH

    Amy, I love your “Listing their “orders” in one area may get you more actions” idea. I'm very frustrated with my blog's design and accessibility issues. Your idea have given me something to consider for the right sidebar. Thank you!

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    When I try to infer the importance or the relationship, i can see the NML logo on your blog is squished and almost unintelligible.I want to some newer concept and site index performances.

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  • http://www.LightTravels.com Carolyn Winter

    Hi Chris – very inspirational post! Will be re-doing my site over the holidays.

    One piece of feedback for you – where can I find what you are selling and how much does it cost? I feel like I have to dig for it. For example, I am not sure – do you do websites with blogs? Would love to refer some of my colleagues your way but not sure you have the services they need.

    Sometimes people arrive to your site already fully sold and ready to buy based on what someone else has said – but if they don't have the 'buy here' button, they could get a little lost. It's a problem I experience at my own site, where I figure visitors need to be thoroughly immersed in my product, the information, how it works etc. It's not always the case.

    Good luck with your site re-design

    Carolyn

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    I am looking for my site Optimisation and That article had helped me a lot. I had collected many good information regarding the how we can set the Headers in our site and how it helps to the users.

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    I am looking for my site Optimisation and That article had helped me a lot. I had collected many good information regarding the how we can set the Headers in our site and how it helps to the users.

  • http://www.vitabits.de/multivitamine multivitamine

    Hi,
    Its really very good habbit to revisit site.So that we can come to know that what mistakes we have done and we can make changes before its use.Thanks for making aware and sharing very helpful text.

  • http://twitter.com/CopywriterMaven Roberta Rosenberg

    Thanks so much for the kind mention of my Landing Page Makeover series at Copyblogger. Chris – if you'd like to be a Landing Page Makeover participant in 2010, just let me know.

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    oh ,It might be more effective to push the newsletter (which is remarkable stuff) and capture them here.

  • http://www.sandor.com.my/ Kian Ann

    Thanks for letting me know about Click tale! Awesome!

  • http://twitter.com/ebookreaderuk noel swinton

    I always find a left hand column, single or double, works better at drawing attention to your offer. Obviously above fold but if a double column one top left and one in the right column on the fold.

    Just my 2c

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