Why has my bounce rate gone in to orbit since moving the same content to a new site?!

[Biota]

I moved our site to a wordpress theme over the christmas break. All content is pretty much the same word for word, and I think the new site looks much, much better than the old one.

Why then, has our overall bounce rate gone from 7-8%, up to 74%? Bounce rates for some KW focused internal pages have gone from 2-3% to similar 70+% in some cases.

Just to confuse things further, I have also changed the name and branding for the site to differentiate us from a competitor and stop the confusion we've experienced at times. But, I can't see how the new logo would cause and extra 65% of visitors to leave straight off! I really don't want to go back to the old name and don't think that's the answer anyhow, but I may have to test it out of sheer desperation.

There's only a static holding page for the old site now as a reference point for people searching the old name (not many). So I've attached a screenshot of how it looked below. Also at http://imgur.com/aM5o9.

The new site is at flatroofs.co.uk.

I have just noticed that by placing the previous 'more information' links a secondary menu in the left widget area rather than on the page, they are less noticeable especially if you scroll down to the bottom of a page, where the only links are in the footer? Again though, if 75% of people are put off this easily something else must be at play!

Any advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance, Danny.

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[ThompsonPaul]

Hey, just noticed your note about you perhaps becoming a fellow Albertan!

Let me know if there's anything I can do to help with info etc in your planning. I work in tourism so have access to lots of resources.

Look forward to welcoming you to Canada!

Paul

[Biota]

Some great advice, thanks a lot Paul.

I hadn't even noticed myself that there are links in the slider text !

All the best

ps: I hope to join you as a resident of Alberta (or BC) in the not too distant future! : )

[ThompsonPaul]

Looks to me like the Analytics was being called both within the Moonfruit system for Flash (around line 14) and pagetracker and _trackpageview were being called in straight javascript calls around line 222.  That'd definitely mess things up.

Little usability note - the links that are shown in your home page's slider are 404ing. Your 404 page would benefit from having a search box on it as well (as might the other pages on your site.) Unfortunately, WordPress's default search is HORRIBLE so you'll likely want to implement an alternative. There are a number of good search plugins available.

Paul

[Biota]

Thanks Paul

I think you may have hit the nail on the head to some extent!

I did the old site in a week back 2008 after being made redundant and seeing my financial life flash before me. I had no clue what I was doing or where to begin, so landed on a WYSIWYG editor called moonfruit sitemaker.

Nowadays I can tell you that this means the whole site is flash, and the analytics set up is only via the tracking ID / UA code, which is entered via the dashboard. This has meant I have no way to enter the code for conversion tracking or a number of other things. Apparently there is a html version of the site available to SEs, which I assume is why it has still ranked quite well.

The landing page for the old site is on the fist domain i bought: flatroogrp.co.uk. Would the code be visible from this?

As some evidence of what you describe, the attached screenshot shows the unexplained EXPLOSION in bounce rate which occurred some time ago. I even tried to speak to moonfruit about this as it was such cause for concern; they could offer no answer, but as you can see, it disappeared again some 9 months later...

A few visitors that became customers have asked me why our (old) site is laid out so strangely. This is where they have seen the pure flash version that bears no resemblance to the real thing. If that hasn't put them off then nothing should!

Thanks again

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[Biota]

Hi Egol and thanks very much for your advice.

On the top banner image suitability I totally agree, but am having upload issues with wordpress at the moment.

I also agree with your other points, but, most of them don't really seem to apply to sub pages (which are returning an equally high bounce rate); these have a sidebar menu with all services showing in there and no moving parts really.

I have even considered whether the confusion with a (very big) competitor has anything to do with the old site's success?

My other big question mark is the yellow branding, although I like it and it's definitely distinctive.

I am going to look at getting a sidebar menu back on the homepage right now!

Thanks

[ThompsonPaul]

Turning this question around, Danny, I'm willing to bet that your "old" site had its Analytics code incorrectly implemented and that it had been falsely reporting it's bounce rate all along.

In over 12 years of web marketing, I've never come across a regular site that had an accurate bounce rate below 10%.

The most common cause of such an unnaturally low bounce rate is having the Analytics tracking called more than once once on the page. This makes it nearly impossible for a visit to be tracked as bounce. This can also be caused by a number of other things (setting virtual pageviews to default pages actions etc) but dupe Analytics code is by FAR the most common.

Unfortunately I can't find a usable version of your site in the Wayback machine to try to check the old site. If you have an archived version of the old site, it would be well worth checking a significant number of its pages to look for dupe Analytics code.

I'd love for you to be the exception to my ultra-low-bounce-rate experience, but I'd seriously look at confirming that the old site's rate was accurate before assuming the new site has a new problem.

A 74% bounce rate isn't all that unusual for such a commercial site, though definitely a target for some of the improvements EGOL suggests.

[EGOL]

I would bet big money that your bounce rate is higher on the current site....

• most of the clickable links on the new site deliver hidden content instead of sending to a new page  (the old site seems to have had lots of links that took visitors to a different page)  (are you certain that these are working in the browsers that are used by your visitors?)

• the huge image at top of page may discourage visitors to explore, also the first image is not a very impressive roof - even after you put a new one on.  Have any better examples?  (my family does roofing and I have worked on a few flat roofs myself)

• the new site has lots of changing content.  top image changes automatically - faster than I can get a good look at it.... testimonial box changes automatically - a lot faster than I can read it

• all of your great services are hidden under a drop-down menu...  I bet most people who visit your site never see them.  I didn't until I started writing this

I'd dump the cool features (changing content, drop down menu, hidden text blocks) and go back to simple, click to a new page and read with a persistent navigation that shouts the services you offer instead of hiding them.

I am willing to bet one-month of roofer's pay that most of the people who visit your website looking to get a roof fixed are not the most web-savvy people.  So cool design features are a hinderance to communication.