Please Give This Page a Good Ass Kicking

[JSOC]

This page on my site has a high bounce rate (around 90%)  despite being right on point for the search queries that lead visitors to it (i.e. keyword data shows visitors are searching for this information exactly). Also, Google keeps giving the page good placement and it receives a good bit of traffic.

Anyone have thoughts as to why the bounce rate is so high? Feel free to offer candid criticism.

[JSOC]

As far as answering the question of length of filing time periods, we absolutely do that. I appreciate the feedback nonetheless.

After implementing the content efficiency tool contained in this great bog post: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/actionable-web-analytics-custom-reports-advanced-segments/

I was able to see that the average time on the page is almost 3 minutes. Further, I now see why my old getclicky stats (29%) bounce were so low. See this post:

http://getclicky.com/blog/214/why-clickys-new-bounce-rate-is-the-best-in-the-biz

Clicky calculates a bounce as someone who leaves immediately, if a user stays longer than 30 seconds, its not a bounce in clicky. I still plan to implement some of these suggestions (and appreciate the ass kicking), but ironically, the very first comment by designer boutique menswear was spot on. Users read the entire page, it answers their questions and they leave.

[JustDucky]

The "Talk to a Local Bankruptcy Attorney" looks like a banner ad positioned between the title and the text.

Depening upon how deep you are in the SERPs, the visitors will likely have already found a much better answer to the question presented in your title "How Often".   The page does not mention the length of the periods where they are prohibitted from filing a subsequent chapter 7, 11, 12, or 13.  None of the prohibitionary periods are addressed in the page.   Depending upon the keywords your visitors are streaming in on, the title appears deceptive or the page is not helpful.

Way too many links.  And, the links are so short, I doubt a reader would find them descriptive or useful.

My .02 Drachma (or Euro)

[bradkrussell]

Hi,

My suggestions would be:

1. "Article Provided by Moderator" - this doesn't look good. At least give the article an author or at the very least name it something generic like "National Bankruptcy Forum"
2. The "Talk to a Local Bankruptcy Attorney" banner I immediately skimmed over. If this is your main call to action and you want people to fill in their details - improve this banner. Condense the 2 lines of text in to one, clear sentence of 5-7 words. Improve the image (perhaps have a picture of an attorney, but do NOT use generic cheesy customer service type images you find plastered all over the net). Also- try a different button colour, it's too similar to your header and the "Ask Question" button below. I don't think it looks good repeated down the bottom of the page either. If you are going to have it down the bottom, have it as a secondary call to action. It just looks spammy having the same banner twice.
3. Fix the "How often can you file bankruptcy/" text under the image of the court house
4. The text looks spammy. There are way to many text links (one of which has poor anchor text of "ankruptcy discharge". I would have a clear navigational menu to these links in the right hand side where the Recent Questions section is. E.g "More Information". You need to break up the text more with relevant images. Also, add a space between the last sentence of a paragraph and the subheading below, this will give a little bit of whitespace and make it more readable.
5. I'm not sure of the Ask an Attorney section. Ask an attorney what? About bankruptcy, about my drink driving offence? I don't think it's clear enough what you want people to do here.

Above all, test test test.

Try some of these A/B testing tools:

http://unbounce.com/

http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/

https://www.optimizely.com/

www.google.com/websiteoptimizer

Hope this helps!

[ShippingContainer]

My first, 10 second response -  I don't know where I'm supposed to look.

(and I waited and clicked to a few other pages, hopefully it might help your bounce rate )

[JSOC]

Phil, thanks for the feedback and taking the time, no offense taken at all. I am definitely going to incorporate some of these suggestions.

[PracticeFusion]

I'm only being so direct because you asked for a good ass kicking which makes me think you're great at receiving feedback :). Here are my unfiltered, stream-of-conscious thoughts:

• This site reeks of spam to me. I realize it's not (and it actually has good content), but my first thought was SPAM. As a user, I would've gone back to the search engines after just a few seconds.
• I think it looks like spam because the "Talk to a Local Bankruptcy Attorney" banner looks like an ad and breaks up the headline from the copy. Also, the caption has a typo (which is one of the first things I see) and the copy is riddled with links. Plus, the fact that comments aren't allowed makes me think that maybe an actual person didn't write this.
• What do you want someone to do after reading this? It's not clear to me. Even if this page perfectly answered my question, I don't think I'd click anywhere to go somewhere else on your site.
• To add legitimacy, I suggest adding a picture and bio for the author. Perhaps link to some of his other work?
• What's the point of the "Recent Questions" on the right? It seems to give no value to me as a user, and really contributes to the page looking cluttered and non-genuine.

Alright, I hope this helps!

[JSOC]

Thanks. Traffic is national, and mostly search driven. We get about 25,000 monthly unique visitors to the site.

[goodlegaladvice]

I think its worth mentioning that the side module merges with the content to much try making it blue.

Phone number + login + google plus needs to be reworked i would make that phone number big

And if you want people to actually read the content get rid of mist the links if you want people to talk to a local attorney try a better call to action

Also is the traffic local, national or international cause we get local traffic for legal stuff bouncing at about 40%

I would take each suggestion and do just 1 at a time & see if it helps

[JSOC]

Thanks for the candid feedback. Good suggestions.

[TheDude]

I felt a sense of immediate text overload upon visiting.  I think you need to break up the copy in a more attractive way.

[Jinx14678]

Agree, Call to action is not clear - also design is "blah" with no real thought for UX.

There are WAY to many links in content - thus making it look spammy and affecting readability

No  Design formatting (or care taken) in the content making, it all run together and look like word vomit.

Picture of the guy in right hand corner is a bad pic, off center ect (does not instill the fact that you care or give me trust you are reputable)

You said kick it in the A&*

[YNWA]

Maybe its just because once you have read that page, the user doesn't feel the need to go any further and clicks off?