[markpowell]

I use Mark at DP also, i had my sites for couple of years now, top of the page in 3 areas, am i bothered if someone 50 miles away has the same sight?? No of course not.
Get 80% of new customers from the sites, why spend £500 plus.
Its not the site but the ranking that gets the work. If your not on the first page its never going to be seen.
Used Dp for ages for postcards and sites and always had the best possible services.
Mark

[Adam P]

google algorithm changes shouldn't be something a decent site has t oworry about, only look forward to. the algoriths change primairly to remove bad sites using bad ways to gain ranks. the legit ways to rank highly has always stayed the same

[wynne jones]

Mark

I did a long post explaining this and that but the bottom line is your bounce rate will not change much, even with a fancy site.

That £5.5k site is dull but they got the one thing right that will make all the difference and I bet he's not fussed about his bounce rate.

If you genuinely have a conversion problem then look at the keywords you are going after. However like your bounce rate, I think your call profile is probably similar to everyone else, you just need more calls so that you can be more picky and have better posture, better sales and qualifying skills. And... the ability to blank from your mind all the idiots who ring rather than dwell on them.

[JandS]

Who knows how Google works, we certainly don't.
When I type in CC in a certain town round here I
come up number 2, who comes number 1? A window
cleaning company, which doesn't instill me with much
confidence when I asked for a CC.

John

[garry22]

I want to fill the whole screen,not just a bit in the middle.

Mark,

To do that involves changing literally one word in the CSS. Sites that expand like that CAN (not always) look poor and be difficult to read on widescreen monitors.

it's just got a really high bounce out rate,people don't go any further than looking at the first page,that's the reason I am updating

From a copywriting viewpoint, there's hardly any reason for them to stay on the site. It does not matter how fancy it looks if there is nothing of interest for visitors to the site.

[M.Acorn]

That's the thing,I have spent nothing on seo,my site comes high up on google,because I listed it with so many few sites,I think.
It just does not generate the work,I get possibly 4 or 5 enquiry;s a week,but far more people look at it without going any further.

[M.Acorn]

the ability to blank from your mind all the idiots who ring rather than dwell on them.

There is that as well,I really do get some random phone calls,like people calling at 8pm on a Sunday to book a quote 2 weeks in advance

[M.Acorn]

Ok then guy's tell me what is wrong with my current site ? It was built in 2004

[Helen]

That's the thing,I have spent nothing on seo,my site comes high up on google,because I listed it with so many few sites,I think.
It just does not generate the work,I get possibly 4 or 5 enquiry;s a week,but far more people look at it without going any further.

That's because you will have markerting, advertising and all sorts of sales people looking at your site, not just potential customers. There will also be your competitors having a look from time to time aswell and people who think they might like to have their carpets cleaned, but are not serious enough to make contact, the list of people that look and do not contact is vast for various reasons.
We used to be concerned about all the hits and non comparable enquiries, but a website is only one of the "tools" for advertising, so we don't waste time any more wondering why we just get on with all our "tools" of advertising

[Adam P]

but still only 4/5 enquiries a week is something that can be improved.

if you don't mind saying mark what is your bounce rate?

[M.Acorn]

Have not got any firm statistics,as can't log into the stat counter,I just look at the hit count and judge that by the amount of enquiries I get

[Adam P]

ah i see. you should install google analytics and then let that run for a month to get some basic info about how users are on your site. would be worth finding out which pages get the most visits, which are the most people leave on etc before going ahead with a redesign as this may influence you on what is important and how some pages should be placed.

just thought i should say then that bounce rate means how many visitors went onto your site and didn't go to any other page. a high bounce rate isn't always bad as it could be that they were sold from the first page and got everything they needed so didn't bother clicking onto others.

you may also be surprised as to how many real visitors you're getting as the stat counter you're using may also be showing bots, so you may think you get say 100 visits this week, but 90 of them were actually google, yahoo, bing, and the other 1 million search engines. then knowing that the 4/5 a week out of 10 visitors isn't so bad.

[M.Acorn]

Yeah I have the stat counter on the site,but I have lost my login details,they won't respond to my request to send it out.

this is who I use http://statcounter.com/

Will have a search through my e mails see if I can find it,as the info will help..

[M.Acorn]

Daily | Weekly | Monthly | Quarterly | Yearly

Summary Chart
Select Date:      or    - 
Select Data:   Show Page Loads Show Unique Visitors Show Returning Visitors
Select Graph:   Bar Graph | Area Graph | No Graph

Save As Default
        Page Loads   Unique Visitors   First Time Visitors   Returning Visitors
Total    158    85    79    6
Average    20    11    10    1
 
Day   Date   Page Loads   Unique Visitors   First Time Visitors   Returning Visitors
Sunday    17th April 2011    1    1    1    0
Saturday    16th April 2011    30    20    17    3
Friday    15th April 2011    8    5    5    0
Thursday    14th April 2011    60    15    14    1
Wednesday    13th April 2011    13    8    7    1
Tuesday    12th April 2011    15    11    11    0
Monday    11th April 2011    26    20    19    1
Sunday    10th April 2011    5    5    5    0

[M.Acorn]

More detail

[M.Acorn]

More detail

Here is a months worth of info...................

So Jan is showing the most,but it was my quietest time so far.

Looks like a lot of my hit's are coming from clean it up !!
Few from Yell and Google.Should have logged into stat counter sooner

[Mike Halliday]

Mark you asked earlier in the topic what is wrong with your website...

I think your home page is a bit boring, the photos are too small so meaningless, make them bigger or put  some subtitles to explain what they represent


you have 4 bullet points in the middle. these could be worded better, bullet points are used to put a point across when you are limited with space.... but you have lots of space so I would change  each bullet points to at least a couple of sentences long explaining the benefit to the customer.

you have loads of spare space i would put a map on it showing the area you cover

just i few things i noticed.

[M.Acorn]

Will look into that,going to spend some time looking at improving the current site a think,and see if the follow on get's better.
Thanks for the input

[Adam P]

i bet statcounter is counting google bots as a visitor which will be most of your visitors. sounds like you aren't getting as many clicks from google searches as you may think. go install analytics now and then let it run for a month. will be interesting to see the differences

[M.Acorn]

Been in touch with my web guy,have made a couple of changes to my site,thought it best to try and improve on what I have got before spending out money on another one.
We are still in the process of e mailing back and forth,can't make current pics bigger,so will have to wait until van is signed up,also asking him to change my phone numbers into black text ,so they can be seen.
Also added a face book button,will get there eventually