What to do when half of my pages aren't being viewed?

[recoil]

My site is roughly 1000 pages.  I've begun refreshing older content.

I noticed about half of my pages have no incoming traffic.

Should I look at combining some of these pages and 301 redirecting the former links to that new "bigger" page and then having my home page show that new consolidated content?

They don't have good back links either.

Example layout now:

Home Page

- Restaurants [show list of cuisines]

- User clicks on Italian [show list of all Italian restaurants]

- Choice 1

- Choice 2

Even though my main page is seen by about 100,000 people a month, it doesn't seem like anyone is interested in going down that path so none of the restaurants are clicked.

How could I improve the user interface/experience and incorporate best Google practices?

Thanks,

Steve

[Chris_Devona]

Hi Stephen,

I followed your path from homepage -> Restaurants -> Italian and found it to be very easy and user-friendly. I think part of your problem with users not following the whole path, may exist with them receiving all the information they need once they hit the "Italian" page. Offered on each one of your restaurant panels are the phone number, address and a link to the restaurant's website. After seeing this information, I'd assume most interested users would visit the website directly or call the place. At first, I did not realize you could click the restaurant's name in order to receive more information, which I assume may be why you're not receiving those extra clicks. I'd try implementing a call-to-action button on each one of your panels such as a "more info" button. I believe that will help direct users to your individual restaurant pages. It may not be groundbreaking, but I think it might be worth testing. Anyway, that's what I got for ya. Best of luck!

[ccox1]

I like what Chris said here. If your goal is to get more pageviews on these deeper results, then removing the phone and address and only having it on the restaurant listing page may get another click.

However, your main issue in getting users to stay on the site longer is still present. What's the #1 thing other people want to know when thinking about going to a restaurant? "Is the food any good?" Users will still probably try and leave to find reviews on YELP or Google. Maybe trying to include those valuable things will keep users on.

Also, I've noticed your Google Analytics tracking script is in the footer. I know this topic is debated, but you're probably losing out on some data for users who bounce before that script loads. This may make things look worse and increase your bounce rate, but it will give you a more accurate representation of how users are interacting with your site.