Splash Page or Flush Page?

March 11th, 2011 by admin

Imagine you ran a hot-dog stand.  Now imagine that to every 3rd or 4th customer that walked up, instead of greeting them and taking their order you instead told them, "get lost, punk!"  Not to particular customers mind you, just every 3rd or 4th however they happen to come by.  This probably doesn't sound like a  great way to build business to you does it?

Yet, amazingly, this same behavior persists on the internet!  Splash pages, or doorway pages, usually intended to show off your designer's creativity by forcing your prospective customer to watch some inane dancing logo or other animated absurdity, have exactly the same effect.  When we look at the bounce rate, or rate of visitors that leave the site never to return, on such pages we consistently see numbers between 25% and 33%!

These visitors are prospective clients that never even made it to your site! So many of us spend tremendous effort getting prospects to our doors (virtual or otherwise) that I can't help but wonder what madness motivates us to flush between a quarter and a third of them down the bounce hole.

Don't believe me?  Take a look at the Analytics data and see for yourself (if you don't know how we'd be happy to show you) - then you decide: Splash Page or Flush Page.

Posted in: web tips