I was just looking at my website stats, and my average time spent on my site seems low. But, I have no real way to gauge it. (BTW, for the month of January the average time spent on my site was about 70 seconds.) That just seems low to me....?

I am about to update the site with a bunch new images, and generally clean it up a bit and try and show a few more images, and make sure the ones I am showing are the ones that the strongest, and the one's that I feel really represent me.

Anyhow... any thoughts on that stat info? What kinds of times do you guys see? Any tips or thoughts overall about how to increase it? Or should I even be worried...

Oh, and for comparison's sake, Oct. '08's avg. was just over 3 minutes... But they have dropped every month since. Maybe the site just sucks?

Sorry about the rambling... any thoughts related to this subject more than welcome! Thanks!

Chris

It's s-l-o-w loading Chris.

Big black blank screen for a long time (computer wise) before the first image shows up.

Jim

Hey Chris,
This is a tough area for alot of web analytics people. Average time on site also takes in to consideration the amount of visits. 70 seconds wouldnt sound that bad if you had alot of traffic. For this particular field time on site is usually rather high based on the length of your slideshow.

In my honest opinion, if you are getting results and still have a low average time on site than great. That means that people are looking enough and then getting to the contact page quicker.

As a basis my wedding photography site (rather new to wedding photography however I have a background in online) get's an average of 00:02:33 on site, with a 20 percent bounce rate and last month I had 716 visits. To me that's pretty good. But if that were to increase to say 1400 visits that time would more than likely drop.

Anyways,
Looking at your site it does not suck. I would look at your bounce rate and see if there is anything going on there. If you want to increase your time on the site you can increase the time of your intro slideshow and rename your Weddings and Seniors slideshows to Wedding Slideshows or Portfolio or something that lets people know that there is more to see.

Also try changing your content and making it fresh as much as possible.

Hope that helps a little.

(P.S. - try timing your slideshow on your home page and think about how close that is to the average time on site.)

What's really important is that they are clicking and emailing you

It loads quickly for me but i was able to go through all your pictures in a couple of minutes. Its not a bad thing, but there is not a lot on there and if nothing grabbed me to look again i could be in and out of there in like 2 -3 minutes. The other thing maybe change the color of the "info" bar in the bottom corner...maybe its to subtle for some people to find and maybe they think that the only thing on your site is the homepage slideshow.

Where are the referrals from and how are your blog stats? Have they changed also?

My connection is often poor, but I haven't had a problem when visiting your site. I probably was one of those bringing down the stats when I go through your site to email you. Sorry!! Next time I'll stay and visit longer.

I double checked and there is a long wait for it to load for me now, but my connection is REALLY bad today (satellite connection, but I need to upgrade). Have you made any changes recently? I liked the white better, but no, it doesn't suck. Could you make it suck? Mine really needs work, so if yours sucks maybe mine would look better?

BGP1 might have it with the info button. The pricing page is a little hard to read both with the white text and all the information. Maybe simpler info listed with a pdf to download to get all the options?

I just realized I didn't answer the question, but I haven't ever checked stats on my photography site. I'm new enough and wasn't advertising so it didn't matter. It'd be really interesting to hear stats from others.

~ Linda

That is why it's important not to have pages that don't actually serve a purpose. Like a splash page giving people a choice of site or blog. The first page should have all working links up front ready for the client to go where she/he wants as fast as they want.

Unlike many of us who are borderline net addicts there are a lot of people who see the internet as a tool to save time, not wast it.

Clients are not there to go gaga over your site but to look at the work and make a decision and that is usually to add you to a short list. Look professional by all means but not at the expense of hindering the client getting to see what they want fast.

Loaded faster this time, could be less web congestion now.

six images on your site? and you wonder why clients aren't staying around. Either that or the images start over after the first six have played.

Ditch that splash page, never offer the option of full screen because it's not needed to see your work but forces the extra page.

Add a contact link to the first page. It may be under info but why should i have to work that out? Then add a blog link to the site. Never make people hunt for links.

Lovely work but it was slow and either needs more images or to keep playing without restarting at the first image. I've seen that on another blue domain site so possible an issue there.

Chris, it's a flash site. As soon as they leave the splash page most stat trackers are going to lose the visitor... to analytics it appears they've left the site. Due to that, time of visits will look really short.

My average is 5 seconds But I'm not a pro and I have it for my own enjoyment, and to show professionals looking for an assistant--so no biggie (although if one of you want to stay on for a couple of hours just to make my average go up I won't complain ).

I agree about the full screen option, I never choose to go into full screen when I have the choice. Ditch it and put on the blog link. Also the part in the left corner needs to be changed from saying "info" to "navigation", or something to that effect. Great pictures, by the way!

Hey, thanks for all the thoughts, everyone! Some really good ideas and musings going on...

I do agree with everyone that it needs more images. That should happen this weekend, hopefully.

Unfortunately it is a template, and there are only so many things I can change.... For instance, I think i can change the color of the menu (Info) but I don't know if I can change what it says. I'll have to check. I know I can change all the sub-topics in the menu.

I really like the idea of putting a blog link right on the front page, but I can't. I can't even make it a direct link from one of the sub-menu's... It is buried in the text on the blog page. Seems to be the only way to do it! I wish I had realized that when I bought it.

So, is there any consensus about splash pages? I've heard so many things on both sides, and I don't have a clue what to beleive. I don't like them, to be sure, but have been led to believe that they are a necessary evil. Not so anymore?

RDD- any stat trackers that do track it? I'm using webalizer and AWstats, both from my hosting company... I've heard all kinds of things about google stats, but have never rewally gotten it to work.

I'm definitely not worried if they don't stay long and the phone is ringing of the hook... But the it has been somewhat quiet (not unusual for this time of year, and I am up on bookings from the same time last year). But the steady decline got my curiosity up, and since the (hopefully) busy season is coming right up, I want things at their best.

Thanks again for all the great suggestions. Keep'em coming!

I really like the idea of putting a blog link right on the front page, but I can't. I can't even make it a direct link from one of the sub-menu's... It is buried in the text on the blog page. Seems to be the only way to do it! I wish I had realized that when I bought it.

What are the options in the admin for your splash page? Mine allows for up to 4 photos, to link to the blog check the "link to other" and designate the url. If you don't have that option, it's easy to hand code it and upload by ftp. Just let us know if you need help with the coding or how to upload it.