10 Nov Size Length and Size Matter? Home Page Testing on BlackAtlanta.com…

Landing Page Testing Gives a tester the ability to experiment with the best variations of a page.  We show you below how we were able to compare BOUNCE rates between two page variations.

BlackAtlanta.com currently runs on a popular flavor of a Content Management System.  Normally, as many of you may know, a CMS runs dynamically from a Database and generates the page content based on the structure of the page requested.  Modules, components, content, etc. are all placed into the page based on the specific page or channel requested.

Our test was to determine whether we could reduce bounce rates between:

• A short version of the page, where the whole page was above the fold.  Options in navigation and choice were limited.
• Or the regular version of the site.  A very LONG page with many options.  (Image shown to the right –>  very long so we really decreased the size )

Based on analytics, (Powered by Google), we were able to assess that “Black Atlanta Events” was a very high keyword searched regularly on the site.  As seen below, we thought that we would:

• “bait” users by placing the Events link in the top left hand hot zone of the page.
• We even thought that we would make the font larger to further entice…
• Reduce the number of options on the page by taking away navigation
• Steer users into a reduced number of channels through graphical content boxes.

We ran this test between November 5-7, 2008 and compared this mini-home page landing page against the regular landing page (home page) between October 29-31, 2008.

Hypothesis

We hypothesized that the limited option landing page would funnel users into more popular areas of the site immediately, and thus reduce the bounce rate.

Now, Google defines the bounce rate as:

The percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. Use this metric to measure visit quality – a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors. The more compelling your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert. You can minimize bounce rates by tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run. Landing pages should provide the information and services that were promised in the ad copy.

Now, all traffic was organically driven.  So keyword relevancy would be high based on Google’s strict algorithmic excellence 🙂  LOL!!!

Our findings.

We honestly pulled the plug early on this assessment.  We found an immediate reduction in the total number of page views, AFTER the click through.  In other words, those that stayed and beat our Bounce rate…. were only looking at a few pages and THEN bouncing.

Bounce Rate

Although we did see the Bounce Rate INCREASE by a little over 8% with the shortened page, we cannot fully call the test conclusive, as the number of page views sent to the shortened landing page was only 28% of what the normal long page received.

Time on Page

Strangely enough, the time spend on the page almost doubled with the shortened page.

Conclusions

As stated above, very few conclusions can be made without truly increasing the number of test page impressions, where the home page was the entry point.

I AM a betting man though.  So here are my conjectures:

1. The Increased bounce rate experienced on the landing page, could be improved with a simpler layout.
2. The bounce rate also had less “flair”, meaning that the bored user left the page.
3. Our other experiments on landing pages that are longer than the fold of the page, show that with the use of Clicktale, a large percentage of users actually scroll down the page past the fold and some even scroll back up, until they find where the click will be.  This is an interesting observation, that means that most users don’t mind scrolling if the content is appealing enough and if they feel the page has the content that attracted the click through.

We will continue to tweak our landing pages and improve hot zone studies.  For the time being though, we will allow this user demographic base to continue to get what we project they like…. Longer pages… More Content, More choices…and yes… more sizable length 🙂

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