My most popular post by far is the one I wrote on “Best Home Exchange Websites”. That makes sense since that’s kinda the reason I started sharetraveler.com. I spent days searching for reviews and information to help me figure out which home exchange sites to sign up for, and found very little. So apparently I’m right that there are plenty of other people like me who want some help figuring out the best house swap network to join. But what I don’t understand is why my post from 2015 continues to be so much more popular than the 2016 version. I know google search results are driving people to the 2015 version. However, if I landed on that post and saw this, I’d click through to the new one:
It’s in red, and bold, and big huge all caps, at the top of the post! But yet still about half of the people who land on this article don’t click through to the new version. Here are my stats from the past few days:
Can someone explain to me why so many people don’t get from the old review to the new one? Is my big red bold “click here” message somehow unclear? I hate to think so many readers are relying on old information to make their home exchange network decisions!
I think you’re confusing the number of “views” with the number of people who actually READ the page. That 2015 page is older, and probably pops up higher in google searches. It might be getting hits from bots, which are adding to the “views.” Google Analytics are not an exact science, nor do they claim to be.
Using the “unique views” rather than “page views” might give you a clearer measure of how many people are reading the page, versus the false landings.
http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/google-analytics-views-vs-unique-views-3472.html
Agreed Jeanette, this is not a measure of actual readers. I was assuming a lot of people land on the page and realize it’s not what they are looking for and so don’t click through but you’re right about bots potentially messing this up. I did set up Google Analytics a while ago, I should probably learn more about how to use it for a deeper look at use stats than what wordpress shows me.
Aside from the real colorblind issue, both headers are bold, and many likely assume the top header is most important. Then there’s the question “who ever reads the preamble or credits?” My sister-in-law may be the only one that reads every word and number, start to finish, including publishing date and Library of Congress number, whenever she decides to read something.
Many are “on a mission” when they start to read something like you offer. Spreadsheets are objective, and many of your readers probably have a specific objective. They aren’t easily distracted by introductory words.
Maybe reversing the positions of the 2 banners, and having the red one on top flash, would tickle a few more eye-brain connections. Annoyance may work.
Adding a disclaimer to the 2015 banner (Old Data?) might not be a good idea.
Yeah I wonder about this just being invisible to people. But it’s not actually on a post with a spreadsheet and old data, it is on a post with my opinions about the best home exchange sites. So my opinions (and the sites) change over time. That’s why I think it’s bad for people to read the old post. But I keep it live because there are lots of good comments on it from readers that I don’t want to lose. Anyway, lots of ways to play around with this but so far none yield more than a 50% click through.
Hi, Dawn.
My guess, w/o doing any user testing, is that visitors are not reading the bolded red message. It looks like an ad and is likely being ignored as such. I recommend updating that copy to simply state “Access Updated Version Here”. Make sure the link is the same color as other links on your site and also make it underlined, so user are made 100% clear it is indeed a link.
Ciao,
Ezio
Well Ezio that’s a good suggestion but that’s what it used to look like. Not in red, and not extra big. And I had an even lower click through rate on that version. So I do think the red helped a bit. But you’re right people might not know it’s a link.