Next time you log into Google Analytics, take a look at your bounce rate. The jewelry websites we track range between 45% - 55% overall website bounce rate.
If your own bounce rate is below 45% then you are doing a much better job than the average jeweler.
As a reminder, the "Bounce Rate" is a measure of how many people first landed on your website, decided it was ugly/disorienting/wrong color/wrong size/misrepresented/etc. and they immediately click the Back Button in their browser.
Launched in March 2011, Google now gives individual users the ability to block results from your specific website. As first, this feature is not visible on the SERP. It becomes visible when you click one of the results and then click your browser's back button.
When you return to the SERP page you will see a sudden bright yellow highlighted link that says "Block all [name of site] results." The yellow quickly fades to white, but not before it correctly plants the suggestion that the website was worthless and you can block it. This feature only works on newer web browsers.
Considering the frenzied nature of online searches for popular phrases like "engagement rings," "wedding sets," and "jewelry stores," your customers now have a powerful tool to sculpt their search results.
Imagine for a moment a user typing "engagement rings" into Google. They are returned with scads of results through which to sift. Imagine you've spent a lot of money getting ranked highly on page 1, but you didn't spend as much time or money keeping up to date with website designs and features users are looking for.
For a fleeting moment you attracted a potential customer, but now they are gone. But that's okay, because the next time they search for "engagement rings" you will still be highly ranked and have a second chance to satisfy them. Actually, it's not okay any more.
Google wants visitors to use this new blocking feature to help them pare down their own results. In a literal puff of smoke (okay, visual smoke, but smoke nonetheless) your site is blocked you've lost future chances of sales.
Google reports that they will not (yet) used data collected from blocked sites to affect ranking data. This only affects individual users.
The bottom line of today's Daily Golden Nugget is that you need to continually monitory your bounce rate. Simple changes to home page photos, headlines, and colors can cause bounces to go up or down. Special heatmap software is available to give you clues of potential bounce rates, but the only true data is collected on your own site.
Work with your jewelry web designer, your website programmer, or do it yourself, but you need to lower your bounce rate as much as possible. If you let your bounce rate stay high, you will eventually see a decline in the number of returning visitors.
