Do you ever wonder how effective your website is in reaching your target audience? After you put in all the time and money to create, update and maintain your website, how many people are even bothering to read it? You can get a good indication when you look at your bounce rate.
Bounce rate is an internet marketing term used in web traffic analysis. It represents the percentage of visitors who enter the site and then leave rather than continuing to view other pages within the same site. You can think of it like this: if a visitor lands on a page and then leaves without visiting any other page on your site that is a bounce. If the number of visitors who leave your site without clicking through to another page is too high, Google will conclude that something is wrong – and they could be right.
Per Siege Media, “According to our analysis of over a billion sessions, a good bounce rate is somewhere under or around 50%, although it depends on the industry.”
Of course, the longer a visitor sticks around, the more likely they are to convert to a paying customer! So your goal should be to keep them on your site consuming content and ultimately clicking on your Call to Action. It’s not difficult to do! First analyze why your site is not enticing visitors to stick around. Some possibilities may include:
- Your site design is a turn off. Maybe it’s difficult to read, or appears spammy, or maybe it greets visitors with annoying music on auto-play. All of these things present a bad user experience that can manifest itself in a high bounce rate.
- Your keywords don’t match your message. If you search for “life coach for women” and Google gives you a link to a site that sells knitting supplies, you’ll probably immediately hit the back button. That’s a clear indication that something is wrong with the search results.
- Your ad promised something you didn’t deliver. Have you ever clicked on a Facebook ad because the photo was enticing, only to find that the item which interested you is not available? Chances are you hit the back button. This type of misleading advertisement can increase your bounce rate and lower your search engine ranking.
Of course, some pages will naturally have a high bounce rate, and there’s nothing you can do about that except try to keep it in perspective. Squeeze pages, for example, will have a high bounce rate because they are a (usually) stand-alone page. There is no menu bar where visitors can surf to another page on your site, no links to read other articles, no “visitors who liked this also views that.” There is nowhere else for a reader to go. Your visitor will either opt-in or “bounce.”
If you’d like to decrease your bounce rate (and you should!) here as some easy-to-implement techniques:
- Add a list of related products or articles at the bottom of each page. “Visitors who viewed this item also viewed…” is a good way to get readers to click through to other pages – especially if compelling titles and images are used.
- Link to other pages within your content. Not only do links to other pages give your reader someplace else to go, but it’s good for SEO as well – remember to use your keywords! Read more on Link Building Strategy from Neil Patel.
- Use excerpts. If a reader lands on your home page and can read the entire last article from your blog, there’s no good reason to click further. Instead, craft a compelling excerpt that entices your visitors to want to read more.
- Make your site easy to navigate. If your menu is hidden at the bottom of the page in a tiny font, you’re going to lose a lot of readers. Make it clear to them how to get from one page to another.
- Make sure your site is mobile friendly. In May 2023, 51.52% of all web traffic came through mobile phones (Oberlo). So it just makes sense that a site with tiny print and impossible-to-click links will turn off viewers who arrive via mobile devices with smaller screens.
- Clarify your message. You have about 3 seconds to get your point across to a new visitor. If he or she can’t figure out what your site is about in that amount of time, they’ll hit the back button and move on. This is one reason I recommend investing in a copywriter for your site copy!
- Include an about page. The internet has become more personal and people want to know with whom they are dealing. When you tell them more about your business and you, it makes the experience more personal. And don’t forget to include a picture (or better yet, a video) they want to see YOU as well!
Make it easy to share! Sharing buttons help your readers to share and recommend your services to their friends, so it’s vital to install them. Be sure it’s easy for your readers to share!- Capitalize on the popularity of Facebook. Facebook continues to reign as the #1 social media platform with almost 3 billion active users. Your website can easily utilize this network with a Facebook widget. Since people love Facebook this is an easy way of providing a good user experience.
- Keep your blog up to date. Posting your blog regularly is essential for your SEO. Keep it current. When your target audience is searching for information, if they find only outdated posts most likely they won’t even bother to click through.
- Turn off autoplay! How many of you have landed on a site to be startled by an audio or video? This makes many people click off before they even read the first word. Give them the choice to listen to your video or audio when they are ready.
- Don’t use huge blocks of text. With the plethora of information on the web today and the lightning fast pace of most people’s lives, people want to scan and get information quickly. Give them what they want – quickly and easily.
Want to know what your bounce rate is and which pages are the worst offenders? Google Analytics is an invaluable tool. You will be able to access this data (and a whole lot of other stuff) easily and for free.
Follow me on Facebook for more content or to ask questions!
