Home page Drop-off Rate

Where can I find literature about this?

[kgoeres]

I've been reporting the drop-off rate (reject rate) of the homepage to my client. I'm looking for some sort of valid literature on why this is important, etc. I can't seem to find anything from a respected source. I've mainly just found opinions, but I need a study or report. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

[jimnovo]

kgoeres, I don't understand the client's confusion. Do they think it is good to have visitors bounce off the home page like it was plexiglass without going further into the site? Is there something else we need to know to understand this situation?

I can't think of a type of site where it is *good* for people to come to the home page and then just leave; so decreasing the reject rate should benefit the site. In every case I have seen, decreasing the reject rate is directly correlated to an increase in sales - or subscriptions, or downloads, or whatever it is you are trying to accomplish at the site.

The offline comparison would be this: client gets excited when the response rate to a yellow pages ad or direct mail campaign goes down. I don't think that has happened in the history of marketing. If clients thought it was good to get less response, ad agencies would never get fired.

Jim

[kgoeres]

Thank Jim. I'm just looking for an industry average for drop off rate from the homepage. I agree...it's not a good thing to have people dropping off the homepage...but there's obviously going to be some. I'm just wondering if 20% is considered average or what. We're always going to work on improving this number, I just wanted to make a sort of comparison to what other sites are receiving.
Thanks!

[jimnovo]

If only 20% are dropping off, that is excellent, and it will be tough to get much better. If only 20% are making it to another page, that is at the high end of average. First run on a site we usually see 50% - 60% not making it past the home page, have seen as high as 95% and as low as 15%, but those two were special situations. We strive to bring it down to 25% - 30% not making it through. You're right, there will always be some "noise" unless you have no natural search rankings at all.

[kgoeres]

Thanks Jim! That helps.