What is Bounce Rate and 8 ways you can Reduce it
What is Bounce Rate?
A bounce on your website occurs when a visitor views only a single page on your site and leaves. This means that the visitor moves away from the site without navigating to any other pages other than the landing page they came in on, before the pre-specified session time-out takes place. Therefore a bounce rate is the actual percentage of one-page sessions on your site and your aim should be to keep this as low as possible.
Of course, there are people who will argue that any repeat visitor is only interested in reading your latest post or watching your latest video, and this may be the case… But the other fact is that a large percentage of your visitors will be new and have never seen your website before. Plus remember your goal, once someone is on your site, is to move them towards a desired action. So this might mean visiting more than one page.
Why should I care about Bounce Rate
User Engagement
If people are finding your website informative, fascinating, funny, solves a problem, offers a product or communicates well – then a user will have no reason to leave your website straight away without first looking around to see what else it is that you do or can offer them. Most people get so caught up in selling that they forgot what people are really there for… Answers!
The answer might be in a blog post that you have written which solves a question for them or it might be in a product or service that you can offer. At the end of the day, that is why we call it Content Marketing and why content marketing works so well… Through providing users with useful well thought out content that answers their question, you have more of a chance that they are going to buy from you. Rather than just punching them in the face with a sales message.
So, if you can think about your website in that context; how does this solve a potential clients pain points in a clear and concise manner, then you will go a long way to reducing your bounce rate. It’s a win win! 🙂
Google is Watching
I don’t write the title to scare anyone but Google is watching how often your website is visited by a user only for them to leave straight away. This is also referred to as ‘Pogo-Sticking’. People bouncing straight in and straight out of different websites on a search result page until they find one that satisfies their query. If users are pogo-sticking on your website to often, Google might use this as a ranking factor and not show your website as high as others that users are engaging with…
Please Note: This should be a secondary point only and won’t be an issue if you take the time and effort to work on the user experience.
Okay, so that is all well and good… But what is the best way to keep visitors engaged and keep them on your site longer?
8 Steps for improving your Bounce Rate:
1. Design Factors:
Presentation is all-important. Poor design elements, a cluttered site or too many ads can add to people becoming very overwhelmed and leaving quickly. Instead try to present your content in a clean and simple way, so that uses can locate the information that they were looking for quickly and concisely.
2. Simplicity in Website Navigation:
Ensure that you have an intuitive and simple navigation to help users get around your website. If visitors find your site too complicated to navigate, it can increase the bounce rate as they leave in favour for easier to use sites.
3. The Content is easy to read:
Ensure that the content is formatted correctly and that there are appropriate headings and sub-headings. This will allow people to locate the specific part of your webpage that they are interested in, as well as workout if the page is worth them investing their time to read it. The paragraphs should be short and you it should have bullet points where appropriate to make the text more digestible.
4. Quality Content:
This point can never be emphasised enough and is what will keep people coming back to your website long into the future. Fresh and relevant content that is updated regularly helps in building the reputation of your website, positions you as an expert in your field and skyrockets you up the Google Search Results.
When deciding what content to publish to the website, consider blogging. Like we are doing here, it is a great way of creating helpful and informative content that will help people answer questions that they might have. You can also consider relating about your experiences in the industry by chatting about your service or reviewing a product… So many things you can do!
5. Page Load Time:
If the pages on your website take a long time to load, visitors may simply navigate away from it. Use a high-quality web hosting service that can provide you with a quick server and make sure each and every page you publish to your website is optimised for speed among other things.
6. It doesn’t just have to be text:
If you think that your webpage would benefit from a video or some other type of interactive media, then go for it. People are much more likely to click on a video than sit and read text and it has never been easier to create a quick little video using your phone. Why not have both and then some!
7. Is your website responsive:
The explosion of people using mobile phones and tablets to view and surf the Internet is crazy – You would be blown away! Have you checked how your website looks on a mobile device lately..? If it is more than a couple of years old, chances are that it might not be very user friendly for people viewing your site on their phones. This will also cause your bounce rate some grief and Google have just announced that they will be favouring mobile responsive sites for mobile searches… Makes sense.
8. Call to Action:
Use a very crisp & clear call to action on each page. It helps customers know what step they have to take next and lowers your bounce rate. Move them towards pages that are relevant to the one that they are on or even promote a service or product that you offer that is associated with that particular piece of content.
Conduct an Audit
Isolate all the traffic sources/pages on your site which are primarily responsible for the higher number of bounces. This will allow you to identify the ones that are the main culprits. Now conduct a thorough review and analysis of every landing page and top content-page which has indicated a very high bounce rate and come up with ways in which you can try to fix it. Use our list above of 8 ways in which to reduce your bounce rate to help you out with this.
At the end of the day… KISS*
Make your site simple, user-friendly, informative, relevant, answer questions that people might have and you will soon find that the bounce rate improving and the number of conversions will proportionately rise. It is not really a difficult thing… It is just about continually asking yourself the question: Am I providing the best possible website for people to visit?
* KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid
Do you need help lowering your bounce rate?
At the end of the day, if this still sounds like something you need help with and is a bit beyond your skill set then sit down with us at Bizow Online. We can review your website and identify the pages that are generating a high bounce rate and apply various strategies to make the users of your website happier. Because a happier user is more likely to do business with you.
We hope this helps!
Thanks so much,
Bizow Online
(02) 9111 5080