4 ms·
1. Create a clear next action on your front page. I'd bet you have a significant bounce rate right now -- people arriving from a search engine or linking site,
by JayNeely 16y ago
1. Create a clear next action on your front page. I'd bet you have a significant bounce rate right now -- people arriving from a search engine or linking site, and leaving within 5 seconds because they're not clear what the site has to offer.
--1a. I'd get more of the articles and forum posts above the fold. These are potentially some of your best spots for getting click-throughs.
--1b. Consolidate that massive top menu. Make more options part of the sub-menus, or let some areas (polls, photos) just stand as content sections on the main page.
--1c. Remove or move that topmost nav bar to the footer. None of those links are priorities; it's just taking up space.
2. It doesn't look like you're currently using Google Analytics? You should really add it, and get a sense of where your traffic is coming from. Particularly where your search traffic is coming from.
--2a. Check which keywords you're getting traffic from that have a high(er) bounce rate. This can be a good guide for new articles. You could also write some code (or see if your CMS has a module/plugin to do this, Wordpress does) to display a message based on the search terms used to enter the site, and recommend some next pages.
3. Style your AdSense ads to get a better click-through rate. ViperChill recently posted a great case-study: http://www.viperchill.com/adsense-account-income/ http://www.viperchill.com/adsense-account-income/
4. Nuke your current forums. They're dead, and will take years to gain momentum in their current forum. Use software that does a better job of showing activity, and start small with one (two or three at max) broad section.
Don't take your tiny audience and make them look for conversations in 50 different rooms. Start with one room for everyone to go into, and it will be easier for newcomers to see conversations happening and join them. You can create more specialized sub-forums later.