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Header Redesign Impact: Bounce Rate, Other Stats Unchanged. Why?

Discussion in 'HTML & Website Design' started by cazort, Sep 7, 2011.

  1. #1
    I recently redesigned the header of RateTea.net. I think the new header looks great compared to the last one...we added a logo, made the buttons light up, and made it look more sleek and professional. You can see what the old header looked like in a screenshot on an old news item about tea percentile ratings.

    I was expecting the bounce rate to change after this redesign, but it hasn't. I see nothing: bounce rate is the same, pages / visit unchanged, time on site unchanged.

    Yet everyone I ask tells me that the new design looks MUCH better. And I agree, the old one looked pretty home-made, unprofessional, and the new one looks more legit. Or do you not agree?

    Why am I not seeing better results in my data?

    Any thoughts or explanations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
     
    cazort, Sep 7, 2011 IP
  2. Rukbat

    Rukbat Well-Known Member

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    #2
    Maybe it's just too niche and no one is interested in rating tea, regardless of your site.
     
    Rukbat, Sep 7, 2011 IP
  3. xira

    xira Active Member

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    #3
    I have to agree. Rating tea? This is a very small niche. You're more likely to get better results by targeting India, Asia, England and other big tea drinking countries via SEO. Therefore I'd actually suggest translations in order to widen your niche.
     
    xira, Sep 7, 2011 IP
  4. cazort

    cazort Peon

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    #4
    Most tea companies actually have on-site ratings of customers rating their own tea. Add up this traffic between all the different specialty tea companies and there's a huge amount of demand out there. I also think there are a ton of people out there who just like rating things in general. I did a lot of research into this well before launching my site...I know the demand is out there, I just need to find a way to tap into it with an appealing site that strikes people as professional, authoritative, and fun to use. And I'm already getting a lot of traffic, from all sorts of search terms. The site is much more than a rating website, it's a whole encyclopedic tea resource, it talks about all the different types of tea, where they're from, how they are produced, etc.

    I posted here because I was interested in feedback about the visual design of the header.

    Do you have any feedback or suggestions about the header redesign, and thoughts as to why I'm not yet seeing any change in metrics like the bounce rate or # of pages / visit?
     
    cazort, Sep 8, 2011 IP
  5. xluciusx

    xluciusx Peon

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    #5
    Part of a factor could be the way in which the users have access to the data your presenting, it should follow a simple flow so that both new and old users can easily visit and find what they need. Also the platform you may be using could be preventing your site and all the hard work you do from properly being indexed within search engines.
     
    xluciusx, Sep 8, 2011 IP
  6. Rukbat

    Rukbat Well-Known Member

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    #6
    You can't keep people from a site they want to go to. Most sites that have almost no traffic have the same problem - no one wants to go to them.

    Some people like rating things, but things they like to rate.

    Some people like rating products on the site they get the products from, but they won't go to another site to rate the product.

    You may have done research, but was it research in how many people would go to a site not connected with the company they buy tea from to rate tea?
     
    Rukbat, Sep 8, 2011 IP