Category Archives: Rants/Raves

How to Profit from a Higher Bounce Rate?

It's simple. Put your phone number in your banner. The phone rings more and the bounce rate goes up.

I get tired of web gurus telling people that they should make sure their bounce rate isn't too high. Some will cite studies that quote an average bounce rate. Some will say things like, "Obviously a high bounce rate means your site has low relevance to visitors, and so to capture more of those visitors you can work on making your site more relevant."

Here's the rub…comparing YOUR bounce rate to somebody else's is simply bad math. The only important comparison to make with your bounce rate is to compare it to the past. If it changes, dig deeper into your web analytics to find out what is going on.

So, how will putting your phone number in your banner increase your bounce rate?

And, why is this good?

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If you are a local retail or service business and you are doing other advertising in your market, you will no doubt be enjoying traffic (you do have a web site…please say yes) from visitors who have searched for you by name. (The good news about this is that when they search for you by name, they most likely won't find your competitors.)

Many of those visitors are coming to your site for one reason; to find your phone number. If you bury it on a "contact" page instead of making it prominent, you create friction for your customers who are already convinced they should call you. If they are forced to click through to find it, your bounce rate drops because these visitors don't count as a bounce.

If you put it on your banner, a visitor can find your site by searching for your name, see it on your banner and stay on your site just long enough to dial the phone. Your analytics program will count this as a bounce.

I would count it as making the phone ring.

Wouldn't you like the phone to ring more?

It was a Day of Days

Dave_young_and_nellie_mckay Just got back to my room after hearing Nellie McKay cap off the annual Wizard Academy reunion. That was fun! She played for an hour and stayed to sign autographs and take pics with us. A nice cozy crowd of about 100 people. If you don’t know who Nellie McKay is, you should find out.

We had a few warm-up numbers from Peter Nevland and Phil Sheeran.

Too fun for words!

Grabbing Attention: Ejector Technology for Passenger Vehicles

Ejector It’s one thing to grab someone’s attention. It’s quite another thing to bait and switch. As a blogger, I get quite a bit of PR email. Today, one came from DENSO corporation with a file attached which was named "DENSO Develops ejector technology for passenger vehicles."

My brain said "CRIKEY! What’s this about?". I opened it and found out that it is some kind of new-fangled air conditioning technology.

Sigh.

By using an ejector that rapidly injects and expands high-pressure refrigerant, the energy that previously was lost in the expansion valve is converted to pressure energy and reused, thus boosting energy efficiency*2. As a result, high cooling and refrigeration performances are both achieved even when the cooler box is used.

“An ejector system can drastically improve the energy efficiency in the refrigeration cycle, and we are now working to develop a system specifically for car air conditioning systems,” said Hikaru Sugi, managing officer in charge of DENSO’s Thermal System Business Group.

Unless you are really into the whole air conditioner technology groove, this is total boredom.

Really, this is just a PR typo, but doesn’t it remind you of some of the marketing and advertising crap you see every day? Don’t do this type of thing in your advertising.

Another example is the stupid travel site emails I get every day. Southwest Airlines sent one the other day which promised Denver-Austin for $79 each way. Not on the dates I wanted, and only on about 2 dates between now and Christmas. Sheesh.

How have the marketers been fooling you?