I'm planning to make some serious changes the index page of my late night chat and hook up site. The main reason is to try and reduce the current bounce rate. According to google analytics, I have an average bounce rate of about 75%. I find this very, very hard to believe since more than half my daily visitors are returning members. Plus, at least half of new visitors are registering on the site. As a result, I have no idea where this 75% comes from. Nevertheless, I need to make my site more inviting. I need some help with deciding what kinds of changes are needed to encourage more visitors to register and enjoy this free service. You can view my site (UstillUp) at the first signature link below. And please, I'm not just looking for people to say "It a nice site, everything look good." I really need some honest and intelligent opinions. Thanks.
dear, ,nice site ., keep up good works. The items in "Our features" should be clickable. That's the first thing I tried to click, which would have taken me deeper into the site. But they're not clickable! That would be enough for me to give in, and keep moving. If you want to encourage people to register, then I think you need to have profile pics on the front page to hook people in. Maybe pics of whoever is online. And keep it real, don't just have pictures of stock models and pretty young things. Also, as soon as the visitor leaves the front page (which looks great), the entire theme of the site changes - it almost looks like a third party framed page. I think you should try and make the theme constant for all pages. I can't really see any obvious reason for the 75% bounce rate though.
I agree 100% with everything you just said Kerosene. It's nice to have a genuine opinion. My friends and family keep saying "everything looks great." I will make the "our features" clickable. I will add some profile pics somewhere - though I'm not yet sure where... perhaps near the bottom. The index page looks a bit different from the rest because I had made changes to this page, without making the same changes to the rest of the site. Also, I wanted it all dark on the index page to go with the theme, but the rest of the site with a white background which is easier on the eyes for long periods of time. Nevertheless, I will definitely work on this. Thank you so much.