Please take a look at my site and tell me what you think - bounce rate too high

[underbidbob]

Hello everyone,

im trying to startup my website called underbidbob.com.

it features:
freelancer, contractor jobs, community (forums, blogs, articles,...) projectgallery, services (want&offer), plus a rental section.
problem is that my bounce rate is too high, and im not sure where to start to improve the site. please have a look and tell me.
i really appreciate your input!
(in return i can grant u free access if ur ideas get implemented)
best
bob

[Sujan]

I've not found anything wrong. I think just select the appropriate audience to reduce the bounce rate. SMO will help you.

[antihero13]

We'll just talk about bounce rate. One main problem is that you don't specify what type of freelance jobs are available on your site. The bounce rate might be coming from construction workers, repair people, laborers and others thinking there are home improvement/construction jobs on your site. Others may think you have service jobs on your site However, your website pertains mostly to web and computer work. Change up your website so you make it clear that you specialize in IT projects. Either that or you could offer all types of freelance/contractor jobs.

Along those same lines, the keywords in your meta tags are too general. Again, use more specific keywords. Add in keywords like computer, programming, development, Drupal, ASP, telephony...things like that.

Don't give away so much stuff on your home page. Particularly I'd get rid of the "Latest Freelance Jobs and Projects" section. If someone is looking for a freelance project and they don't actually see anything new or see a job posted six days ago, they'll leave. Your visitors probably don't see anything on your page they didn't already see on previous days.

Think about redoing your navigational menu. Take your freelance jobs and group them by function (programmers, designers, databases, photography, etc.), by location, by duration, etc. Take these categories and put them in your menu. This will make people click around more and will get more information off your front page.

Make a bigger deal out of your community section. It's not really heavily promoted on your front page. You've just got one menu item for it. Create a big link or write a small blurb about your community and put it somewhere noticeable on your front page. If more people knew you had things like contractor ratings, blogs and forums more people might stick around and use those features.