Visit Duration, Page Views, and Bounce Rates in Analytics

Many clients have never had a need to learn website statistics such as those provided by Google Analytics, and they can be confusing at first (or second, or third) glance. This post (sorry it's a bit lengthy) is intended to help you understand some of the most important metrics, with examples using real-world data as seen in the table below.

Source: www.similarweb.com, April 13, 2017

Definitions

Visits - All of the data in the table above is averaged based upon visits. A visit is simply a session where a visitor is on your website and the two terms are often used interchangeably, whether the visitor only goes to one page or visits 100 pages. If someone goes to your website, visits five pages, leaves, then comes back an hour later, that is considered two visits, or sessions (even though it’s one visitor).

Average Visit Duration - The average visit duration is exactly what it sounds like; an average of how long each visitor stays on a particular website per visit, from the time they get to your site until the time they leave your site. Leaving your site can be through a number of ways including “leaving” by closing their browser, clicking the “back” button after first arriving on your site, or clicking on a link that takes them to a different site somewhere else on the internet.

Pages / Visit - Every page a website visitor visits is counted as a “Page View”. The “Pages / Visit” column is an average of how many Page Views the average visitor views, and since some people visit a site once while others are repeat visitors, the Pages per Visit metric is based on the pages per visit per session. If someone visits your website, visits five pages, leaves, then comes back the next day and visits five more pages (even if they’re the same pages), that would result in 10 Page Views but an average of 5 pages/visit.

Bounce Rate - The Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors who leave a website after viewing only one page. Let’s say, for example, someone wants to buy a red sofa and they’re very particular that it must be red. Let’s say that person goes online and searches for “red furniture”. If from the search results they click on a link that takes them to a furniture company’s website that only sells blue furniture, they would likely click the “back” button on their browser because they knew immediately they weren’t going to find a red sofa on the blue furniture company’s website. That visitor is said to have “bounced” because they only visited the page they landed on and didn’t go to any other pages on that site. Higher Bounce Rates aren’t always a bad thing, as we’ll see below.

Making Sense of the Numbers

You’ll notice in the table above that several values are circled in red and numbered (1) through (8). This is how each will be referenced throughout this section for easier reference. It’s also important to keep in mind that the sites listed above are extremely popular websites and the metrics you see are not what you should expect from your own site. Google for example has over 2 trillion searches per year. Facebook has over 1 billion active monthly users. Don’t try to take the numbers from the table above out of context because your website is NOT Google, Facebook, or any of the other sites you see here. The purpose of this is simply to show where some differences in metrics come from.

The Myths, De-Mystified

Most people who don’t fully understand statistics, how website statistics are measured, or consider human behavior in a “big picture” context often make certain assumptions that aren’t always true. For example, a longer Visit Duration isn’t always a good thing. Consider some of the following when examining statistics for your own website:

Average Visit Duration is one metric that most people assume the longer the duration, the better. While this is often true, there are many scenarios where it’s not the case. Take a look at items (1), (3), and (5) and the websites each one corresponds with. Now think about how people typically use each of those sites. Facebook is known as a site which people tend to visit out of habit or when bored. They tend to scroll through their timeline, click on a few friend’s pages, make some comments, share an article or two, and leave. An average of around 16 minutes (1) probably seems within the normal range to most people. Youtube is where people go to watch videos and listen to music, so naturally the average visit duration is going to be substantial...over 24 minutes in this case (3). Compare that to Wikipedia at just over 4 minutes per visit (5) and Youtube has more than five times the duration of Wikipedia, so why is that? Again, this goes back to behavior.

People visiting Wikipedia are generally researching some topic they want to know something about. Let’s say you want to know the population of China. A quick search yields a Wikipedia page at the top of the results, and people know that’s a site they can go to in order to find out what they’re looking for, so they click on it. The information is easy to find on Wikipedia, the visitor gets everything they need quickly, and leave if that’s all they wanted to know.

The thing to note here is that Average Visit Duration can be low because most people simply don’t like your website, or it can be low because your site is structured so well that visitors are able to find the information they need very quickly (e.g. if they’re just looking for your phone number or address). In the latter case, a lower Average Visit Duration is better. Conversely, a high Average Visit Duration may indicate that people really like your site content and spend time reading it, or that they can’t find what they’re looking for. A visitor to one car dealer website may have to click on every vehicle to see the mileage, whereas another car dealer website may have a filter to display only vehicles with less than 50k miles. The second site in this example would yield a shorter Average Visit Duration, but it’s actually a good thing for the visitor in this case.

Pages per Visit can be looked at in a similar fashion. Wikipedia has an average of only around 3 pages per visit in our table above (6) while Facebook has an average of over five times that amount at 15 pages per visit (2). Most people assume that more pages per visit is better, and often it is, but it’s not always the case. Let’s go back to how the average person uses Facebook versus Wikipedia. Facebook is a site which people tend to browse through, clicking on multiple pages per visit. Wikipedia, as mentioned in the example earlier, is typically the end point for someone who is searching for very specific information. Once they get the info they were looking for, they don’t typically browse through additional topics unless they’re related to the original topic. This would explain the gap in pages per visit between those two sites. Again, these numbers need to be taken within the context of user behavior on a macro level, like the difference you would expect in how many pages someone viewed while browsing through an old family photo album versus how many they viewed while browsing through the dictionary. They’re both technically books, but used very differently.

Bounce Rate, like the other two metrics being discussed, is also a number that can be better if it’s higher or better if it’s lower, therefore site usage is important to keep in mind. In the example of Live.com the bounce rate is extremely low at 13% (8). When you consider that people going to Live.com are going there for the very specific purpose of logging in to their Microsoft account, it makes sense that almost everyone going there does go to at least one more page before leaving.

Similarly, many sites linking to Youtube do so in such a way that the visitor knows ahead of time they’re going to end up visiting Youtube by clicking on the link, and as you’ve probably seen, Youtube has an entire column to the right of their videos which shows related videos, encouraging and making it very easy for visitors to go to at least one more page/video before leaving the site. This sort of site structure helps to lower the bounce rate to just 19% for Youtube (4).

The bounce rate for Wikipedia is incredibly high with almost half of the visitors leaving after viewing just one page (7) and as with everything else, this is a direct result of usage patterns. Let’s go back to how most people use Wikipedia (searching for a specific topic and clicking on the Wikipedia result in the search engine). Since they’re often searching for something so specific, they land on the Wikipedia page for that topic, get the info they need, then leave the site. If you’re looking for the population of China and find it on Wikipedia as in our example, you’re pretty unlikely to get sidetracked and visit other pages on the Wikipedia site. You’re almost 50% likely, as the bounce rate suggests, to leave after finding the info you sought.

With the car dealer website example, consider that many visitors will arrive on your site after seeing one of your vehicles on a 3^rd party classified site. Think of how many visitors are likely to click on a vehicle, let’s say on Craigslist, get taken to your site, either looking for or seeing something about that car they didn’t see before (e.g. if you don’t have a price on Craigslist they may click to see if you have one on your website). It’s typical behavior for that person to hit the “back” button on their browser and get back to looking at the other vehicles on that classified site, especially if they’re looking for something very specific that your vehicle doesn’t have. Of course you want every single visitor to buy a car but that’s not reality. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing when bounce rates are “high” (whatever you want to consider high). It could simply mean that visitors are finding the info they want quickly, without having to jump through a bunch of digital hoops (links) to find it.

Summary

In summary, analyzing website statistics isn’t really a black and white issue. There are several factors that go into making sense of the numbers, everything from the website design itself and who your target market is, to how and where you’re marketing your website. While many think every website should have a high visit duration and number of pages per visit with a low bounce rate, it’s not always the case. Sometimes, but not always. Every website is unique and will have its own statistics, so knowing what to make of those statistics is the key to understanding your own metrics.

Focused Marketing for Empowering Car Salespeople

What would happen to the car sales industry if it changed it's focus to begin marketing with the sales representatives, rather than the dealership? According to Auto Alliance, in 2015 there were 1.65 million Americans working at car dealerships. Just think of the the untapped resource of marketing individual salespeople as well as the dealerships.

The majority of time customers spend during the car buying process is with their salesperson, and 71% of customers say they bought their vehicle because they liked, trusted and respected their salesperson, according to Jeff Kershner of Dealer Refresh. Now imagine fostering those relationships before the customers even walk on the lot.  

With a personal website, regular blogging, emailing, and social media integration a salesperson can do just that. It is a win for the dealership too, as all leads and sales through their reps ultimately come to them. Failure to encourage and help their salespeople to do so means the dealer is not maximizing their advertising dollars. Remember, buying a car is one of the most expensive and personal purchases that people make, so focusing on building a rapport between a customer and their salesperson is really a no-brainer. Why do you think most dealers don't embrace this potential?

Call-to-Action Recommendations for Automotive Websites

It's no secret that mobile device manufacturers are in a highly competitive market. So many options, and most people only pick one device every couple of years. I don't pay that much attention to the latest phone coming out, unless I'm actually in-market for a new one. When I am in the market, I spend some time researching what's available at that time (or within the months that follow) to see if it makes sense to wait. More on this in a minute.

As someone with a degree in psychology and who is, shall we say, heavily involved in marketing, I don't see advertisements like most people do. The average person listens to what the advertiser says; I pay more attention to how they say it. Sales is a process of skillfully guiding a prospect down the path you want them to go. If you've ever been in sales, you've likely heard the saying that the #1 thing that kills a sale is that the salesperson never actually asked for the sale.

From the standpoint of a website, a call-to-action is essentially "asking for the sale". It may not be an actual purchase, but let's look at a car salesman's website as an example. Let's say you're car shopping and end up on an auto salesperson's personal website. You learn a bit about the sales rep, how they grew up in the area, have 3 kids, and whatever else they present through their personal branding. Once you become comfortable with that salesperson and decide to enlist their services, what do you do next? Most people will say "head to the dealership", but that's only because you're reading this and imagining a page with a bunch of words on it, describing who the rep is. Imagine if the biography of the salesperson you just read also has a form on that page to schedule your personal appointment with them, or even a "click-to-call" button. Such a "call-to-action" is a logical "next step" for the website visitor, and helps to guide them where you want them to go. A call-to-action is essential.

In this case, the sales rep wants to collect that person's info. Doing so enables them to, at a minimum, follow up by email, phone, etc. If they can show their manager at the dealership that they had been working the lead when the prospect arrives at the dealership, that sale goes to them. If the prospect had simply learned about the sales rep then drove to the dealership, the prospect will most likely end up with another rep because they probably (1) forgot the sales rep's name, (2) forgot to ask for them, or (3) was simply approached by the hungriest rep at the store.

So what does all this have to do with mobile phones? I'll bring it home for you. I was recently on Twitter and noticed a pay-per-click ad from LG, promoting their new G5 smartphone. I'm not in the market for a new phone, but curious, I clicked on it and then the link they posted for info about the phone. It brought me to a decent micro-site for the G5 phone, complete with great photos and features. And that's it. No way to request more info, no way to pre-order one, and no way to even follow LG on social media for that matter. So I'm supposed to think of LG when I'm in the market for a new phone 3 months from now. With everything else going on in my head. And all the other ads I'll see between now and then. A simple form to submit an email for a reminder when it's available, or better yet, a form to pre-order the G5 would likely result in more sales. Even if it only generated one extra sale, the 10 minutes it would have taken to add that form to the site would have been worth it.

LG G5 Marketing Micro Site

Simple Website Designs Outperform Their Counterparts

I wrote about this topic years ago with an actual client example (original post here). In that analysis, I had one client who was over the top when it came to design requests. If it could be done, he wanted it on his site. Eventually the site became cluttered and went against every convention I knew of. Music playing, animation, blinking text, etc. It was crazy but as long as he was paying his bill and I did everything I could to convince him NOT to do those design things, that was all I could do. After a year and many discussions about how his website wasn't accomplishing his goals, I convinced him to let me rework the site the way I thought it was best. If he didn't like it, fine, we could revert back. The website leads increased by 400% almost overnight.

Dealers shopping our products on higherturnover.com sometimes ask why our designs are very simple. At times we have even had dealers choose another provider over us because they preferred the look of the other provider's designs. Is an aesthetically pleasant design important? You bet. Is it the most important thing? That just depends on what your priority is. Would you rather have people comment on how "cool" your design is, or would you rather have those people coming onto the lot to buy cars? Ideally there is a balance between the two, and that's where Higher Turnover Websites can help dealers who don't know much about web design principles.

Interested in hearing more about this? Check out this post from November on the ConversionXL Blog.

Choosing a Dealer Website Provider

A simple email I received prompted me to write this post today. The email was from a "website development and marketing company" based in the Western U.S. The message was short and sweet: they saw I just registered a domain name and wanted to know if I needed help with programming, design, or marketing. We get emails like this all the time. Some are well-written, some are not, but the point of this post is the bigger picture.

Someone who didn't know any better and who had a real need for website design or internet marketing at the moment they received the email might have hired this company. Every decision-maker has the right to hire whomever they wish, but chances are you don't have to think too hard to come up with a horror story about a friend, relative, or even yourself who made a bad decision at some point and had to live with it (i.e. money or time wasted). For some reason it seems that car dealers are especially susceptible to "being sold" on a vendor's products or services, without doing any due diligence at all.

To me, this email I received had several red flags:

1. It ended up in my spam folder - If they can't even get their own emails successfully delivered to my inbox, why would I hire them to do email marketing for me?
2. There were grammatical errors - Again, if they can't write a 3-sentence email without grammar and spelling errors, how would that reflect on my business if they were representing us?
3. It was addressed to a generic name - If they want to impress me with their marketing skills, they probably shouldn't be referring to me as "Mr. Admin"

These sort of emails are a regular occurrence. I just happened to look this one over as I was emptying my spam folder and decided to comment. We see it all the time...dealers who choose a website provider because the salesperson "sold" them. These are the same dealers that come to us 6 months later, complaining that they wasted thousands of dollars on empty promises. If you're a dealer reading this, don't say you haven't been warned!

Changing Dealer Website Providers

After a lengthy process of restructuring our company website, I was thinking about how much a car dealer normally has to go through to switch website providers, and unfortunately the answer is "not much" with most providers. I say "unfortunately" because by not doing things properly, the dealer's website can take a big hit in the search engine results and rankings. It takes a lot of work to do things properly, and because dealers typically don't know any better, they trust their new provider will do it the right way. Providers can get away with not spending the extra time/effort and 99% of the time the dealer will never know, but as a reputable dealer website provider, Higher Turnover insists on doing things the right way whenever possible.

Usually a websites URL structure (the names of the pages) will change from one provider to the next. Someone may have an inventory page as "inventory" while another may have it as "vehicles" or something else. Pages get indexed in search engines, and if the appropriate steps aren't taken, all of your search results could be useless. Imagine your old provider has your vehicles at www.yoursite.com/inventory and that's the way your vehicles are indexed (included) in the search results. If you switch to a provider who uses a different URL, for example www.yoursite.com/vehicles, the visitor who clicks on your indexed link in the search results will likely be taken to an error page because the page they were taken to no longer exists.

Some things to put in place to avoid these problems are uploading a new sitemap to the search engines (which lets them know what pages currently exist on your site) and automatically redirecting all old URL's to the corresponding new pages. These are relatively simple things to do which help you retain search engine rankings, and perhaps more importantly help your customers actually get to your new site when they click on a link in the search results. If you're considering a switch from one dealer website provider to another, make sure they are accountable for making your transition a smooth and PROPER one.

Car Dealer Websites - What Not to Do

I'm a big picture guy by nature. I could be doing the most mundane task and I'm usually thinking of how it relates to other industries, or what the implications are from different angles. This week I was Christmas shopping online as millions of others do. I'm involved in development of car dealer websites, so I consider myself somewhat of a usability expert when it comes to web design.

When someone is visiting/using a website, they expect certain things. They have expectations for a lot of things including where to find things on the site and how certain things work. For example, I was shopping for a new Pandora bracelet for my girlfriend. Of course the first place I went to research was the official Pandora site. At first it was like any other website...decent looking and seemingly functional. Click on "explore" and navigate to the bracelet section...easy enough. OK, I know she wants a bracelet, I know she likes silver...click and click. Hold on, now they want to know what color. What color? I thought it was just a silver bracelet. OK, let's pick a random color and see what happens. How about orange? That's her favorite color. Now they want a price range. I just want to see the damn things that are available so I click on "show all". Finally, some results for me to check out. They have 10 different bracelets to choose from? Well I guess I'll start with the one that I think she'll like best. I click on it which produces...nothing. I click again and then realize the image isn't even linked. No way to get a closer look at the bracelet. I'm just stuck looking at a low-resolution image of the bracelet. It could be a circular ring of speaker wire for all I know.

Whatever, I'll just have to trust that this is the one she'll like. OK, time to put it in my cart and find some charms to go with it. I don't see how to put it in my cart, so now what? Oh well, I guess I'll just remember which one it is and find the charms. They have over 600 different charms you can purchase. For the average guy, this is a little overwhelming but I manage to find a few that I know she'll like. Good, I'll just add them to my cart and checkout. Wait a minute, where's that cart I put the bracelet in? Oh yeah, there wasn't one. All I can do is put everything in my "wish list".

My biggest gripe with this process is that I'm a guy and they don't make it easy for us. I'm not just a "clueless when it comes to buying jewelry" kind of guy, but as many would translate that title, I'm your "average" guy. The Pandora website is not the easiest or most intuitive design for someone like me, so I can only imagine what it's like for someone with fewer internet skills. It took me at least a half hour to figure out what to buy. The biggest surprise once I found all that stuff? You can't even purchase anything on the site other than a gift card! I know that if I go to my nearest jeweler who carries the Pandora brand that they're not going to have all 600+ charms in stock. Also, I've since discovered that there are a multitude of sizes for the bracelets themselves. What guy knows the size of his girlfriend's or wife's wrist? I ran across 7 different sizes available, and guessing which one will fit properly doesn't seem to have good odds.

At the end of the day I decided to get a different gift. If the Pandora site had been designed without some fundamental flaws, I would have dropped quite a bit of money on their overpriced items. Instead, I became aggravated and even after spending quite a bit of time looking at their stuff I decided to abandon the idea. Think about who you're designing your website for. In the case of Pandora, I'd have to believe a significant percentage of shoppers are men buying gifts. The site isn't geared toward men buying gifts though, it's geared toward people researching the brand. Pandora has some really strong aspects of their business model (e.g. securing long-term business through repeat customers) but this lack of e-commerce and non male-friendly site seems like a horrible marketing move if you ask me.

We have auto dealer clients from time to time who ask for off-the-wall features on their websites. Music playing on the homepage or some other novelty which was cool in the early 1990's for example. I encourage every website owner to think about who their audience is before designing a site. Sure, if you can dream it you can build it, but is "it" what your customers are looking for, or is it what you want?

Car Dealer Websites Using Flash Alienate iPhone and iPad Users

As someone in the business of developing websites for car dealers, I frequently see an advertisement for a dealership and check out the website listed in their ad. If I happen to be watching TV and see the website on a TV ad, I typically don't sit around with my laptop so I check on my iPhone. This happened the other day and when I went to the dealer's site from my iPhone, nothing but a message telling me to download Adobe Flash. Of course I know Flash isn't supported on the iPhone or iPad but I wanted to see what less knowledgeable people might have seen if they clicked on the link to install Flash. "Flash player not available on your device". So basically, if Flash is required to view your dealership website, there is no possible way for the customers to actually use your site. With the number of iPads and iPhones out there (and continuing to grow), if I were a car dealer, this would be the only reason I need to stay away from Flash websites.

I won't mention their specific name, but our competitor who handles this particular dealer's site I checked is one of the larger companies out there. They've made a decision to cater to what their clients want, rather than educate them on best practices for exposure. When we use Flash in our designs, it's only because the dealers insist on it, even after we've educated them on the drawbacks. We know that if you are going to use it, you should use it properly. This means have a non-Flash version of the site which is displayed for iPhones/iPads, or for smaller Flash elements, have images which are displayed when the Flash cannot be displayed. See the website header on www.tmotorsales.com, one of our client sites. Visiting the site from a PC you'll see the animated header. Visiting the site from an iPhone you'll see an image of the header rather than the big empty space that most providers have on their client sites.

If you're going to do something, you should do it properly, that's all I'm saying.

Online Auto Dealers Back in Business

I'm sure many of our original followers are gone by now. After all, it has been over 2 years since the last post here. We've gone through a lot of changes with our web design for car dealers business, added many new features/improvements, and introduced new offerings/businesses too. More about that in later posts.

A lot can happen in two years, both to a person and to a business. I'm glad to say that Higher Turnover has had a lot happen in a positive way, whereas I've seen a lot of negative things in the industry over the same period. Car sales have gone through a serious slump. Some website providers have failed to improve their products beyond what they had 2 years ago...an eternity as far as the internet goes. I refuse to point fingers at those who are complacent, but if you're a car dealer it should make you think. You should be in the habit of asking yourself questions: Has your website provider added any value to you over the last year or two? Have they generated more sales for your dealership to coincide with their price hikes? Have they developed new features to make your life easier, or are they just collecting their fees from you because you don't push for more value in their product?

I'll be the first to admit that things need to be prioritized and there are things that are more important than spending 10 minutes to evaluate your web design company that you've been with for years. At some point though, you have to say "OK, it's time to catch up on some things that are long overdue". If you don't, you're going to become one of those dealers that everyone else laughs at because you're so far behind the times and pay more than you should for "old" products. You're setting yourself up for disappointment at some point.

One Thing a Dealership Can Do to Increase Web Leads

I wrote a post back in the summer comparing two similar dealers in the same market to illustrate the impact of web design on lead generation. One dealer was doing a lot better than the other in generating web leads despite similar traffic numbers. After listening to a year of complaints about how bad business is, I finally convinced the dealer with the "worse" website to take my advice and redesign it according to my recommendations. The site content was not changed much at all, only the page layouts, some graphics, etc. It's amazing how small changes can impact business so much. Here are the actual numbers from the three-week period immediately before the change compared to the three-week period immediately following the change:

Before:
Site Visitors: 1452
Pageviews: 10,212
Contact Forms Submitted: 7
Credit Apps Submitted: 9
Overall: 1 lead for every 91 visitors

After:
Site Visitors: 1599
Pageviews: 10,716
Contact Forms Submitted: 24
Credit Apps Submitted: 41
Overall: 1 lead for every 25 visitors

The site statistics have not changed much at all, but by making some adjustments to the site layout, this dealer has increased his conversion rate to 4 times the amount it used to be. We run into these sort of problems on a daily basis. A dealer may want to do something on his/her site that they think is a good idea, but I wish more dealers would listen to those of us who have been in the online media industry and have seen how much business these type of "mistakes" can cost. Going off the last 3 weeks stats, let's assume this particular dealer had 27,716 visitors for the last 52 weeks. If they had the same conversion rates they see since the redesign, that would be 1108 leads. With the old conversion rates it would only be 304 leads, a difference of 804 for the year. As a dealer you know your closing ratios, so would it be worth it for you to make a small change and have a crack at an extra 804 car shoppers over the year?

Cost vs. Value in Auto Dealer Websites

I've tried to post a couple of comments on a blog recently that were not approved/posted by the moderator. Perhaps they don't approve of my comments, or perhaps their blog is only being used to help with driving traffic to their business website and they aren't concerned with generating a dialogue. Since there are no comments from anyone on the entire blog I'd have to assume the latter, so I thought I'd speak my opinions here.

The blog I'm referring to may be authored by a competitor of ours on some level, but I'll be the first to admit, they do offer decent web solutions. The latest blog post that caught my eye was about car dealers in the Midwest not wanting to spend money on internet marketing. It's a good topic because it's typical of the dealerships we work with on the independent level. I happen to disagree with certain portions of the post however.

The author equates a website cost with the number of leads received. According to him, the more money a car dealer spends on a website the more leads they will receive.

I have to say I disagree most with their comment that "If you are not spending a minimum of $700 per month on your website, your website is probably not attracting the leads necessary to really be effective". They're assuming cost is correlated directly with value, which if you've taken a look at some of the other providers out there, is clearly not the case. Sure there are some companies that develop great sites for $700/month, and the author's company may be one of them, but there are others that are capable of generating the same amount of leads for the end user at a fraction of that cost. A website should match the dealers needs, and if they don't need a $700/month site, there are other options that may be equally as effective.

Unfortunately a lot of consumers (including car dealers) fall for the trick that more expensive means better product. A friend of mine just bought a brand new car. The identical car was at two dealerships, and they really were the same, even down to the colors/options. One dealer had the car listed higher than the other dealer. If you were buying a car that two dealers each had on the lot, and each one was identical, would you buy the higher priced car? Is it a better car somehow?

The point I want to make is that cost is not the same as value. Our company offers some of the cheapest rates available for car dealer websites. I feel our products are far better than any other company that charges similar rates, meaning we have a similar cost but a better value. As a dealer your focus should be on value. Without it, cost is nothing more than an arbitrary number.

What Can Be Done to Improve Website Leads?

We’ve done websites for car dealers across the country, and of course we have several clients in our local area as well. The different approaches by two local dealerships has given us a unique look into how much a website design really impacts the amount of leads generated from the dealership website.

These two dealers, we’ll call them Dealer 1 and Dealer 2, are comparable on most levels. They both spend a lot of money on marketing. Both use the same 3^rd party classified sites (Autotrader.com, Cars.com, AutoMart.com, AutoExtra.com, and a couple of smaller sites). They also use the same magazines to advertise locally with similar multi-page spreads. Even the inventory and customers are similar – they both sell in the $7k-$15k range, have the same number of cars on the lot, and both do mostly sub-prime finance. When Dealer 1 seemed to be doing so much better than Dealer 2 as far as website leads, it warranted a closer look.

When Dealer 1 signed up with us over a year ago they didn’t have a lot of input into their site design. They wanted to trust our expertise and see the results. We did a very simple design, easy to navigate, always 1-click away from inventory, and a very short credit application.

Dealer 2 was the exact opposite. This dealer was adamant in the design and features he wanted on his site, even though most were against convention, and certainly against our recommendations. Their site has been more of an ongoing project – constant changes requested, seemingly new features added every couple of weeks. It’s truly become an endless pit of feature-creep. A prime example of what can be done as opposed to what should be done.

Upon a recent evaluation of leads and overall statistics, here’s what was uncovered. We literally went through every lead ever generated on each site to clean out things such as multiple inquiries and bogus leads. We wanted to do an apples to apples comparison, so accurate data was necessary. Here’s what we found:

Visitors on Dealer #1 site only spend half the time of visitors on Dealer #2 site.

Bounce rates for Dealer #2 are twice that of Dealer #1.

Dealer #1 receives 1 good lead for every 22 website visitors (4.5%). Dealer #2 receives 1 for every 91 visitors (1.1%).

So what does all this mean? One way to look at it is that Dealer #1 has a site which doesn’t confuse visitors (lower bounce rate), they’re able to find what they’re looking for easier (lower time spent on site), and the calls to action make customers more apt to submit leads.

Dealer #2 has a site which isn’t nearly as user-friendly, has a lot of content that customers don’t care about, and lacks the necessary calls to action which help generate leads.

This all goes back to what I’ve said before on other posts. Just because something can be done, that doesn’t mean it should be done. Car dealers by nature want to do things their own way, but not listening to the people you pay to help you can cost you a lot in the long run.