This past June marked the 30th month since we began tracking analytics for the Builder Web Stats report. The data comes completely from United States based home builders, but the reports have been reviewed by thousands of builders in nearly 30 countries, providing a much needed benchmark of performance and an indicator of consumer behavior.
Our most recent report is below and, like each one before it, contains some very clear trends alongside some deeper gems. Read our highlights below the infographic.
Home Builder Website Performance Statistics
Highlight Summary
- Mobile – Mobile usage has been a consistent highlight in each update. The growth in mobile usage continues it’s upward trajectory; up an astonishing 566% in the 30 month history of the Builder Web Stats report.
- Blackberry is Nearly Irrelevant – Over the history of the report, the percentage of home buyers visiting builder websites with their Blackberry has decreased from a barely relevant 2.9% in 2011, 1.0% in 2012, and now barely existent 0.4% so far in 2013. Seriously, don’t worry about how your website looks on Blackberrys unless your analytics show an atypical concentration of visitors using them.
- Bounce Rate – For the first time, we saw a significant increase in the average bounce rate builders are experiencing. This is the percentage a visitors that “bounce” off of your website by visiting no more than one page before leaving. Historically, a bounce was considered a bad thing; an indicator of a site that did not engage the user. Today, as we learn more about our users, and as their behaviors evolve, we know a bounce could just as easily be caused by giving the user exactly what they wanted in one-click; i.e. a phone number, address, driving directions, etc.As for why now is when we see this big increase, we think it’s caused by a rise in the use of paid search (like Google AdWords). The improving market has brought a number of builders back to paid search, or caused an increase in the paid search budget. Paid search typically has a higher bounce rate than organic forms of traffic caused partially by it’s nature, but also because clickers are taken directly to the page they want to see. If they got what they needed in one page, it’s a good bounce.
In our next update, we plan to include some insights on the prevalance of paid search, and social media-sourced traffic to builder website. What else would you like to see us include?
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