When you log into Google Analytics, you may be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data it shows you. Bounce Rate is one of the more important measurements, as it shows how effective your marketing strategy is. Let’s go over exactly what a Bounce Rate is, as well as how you can improve your Bounce Rate for better search engine optimization and more traffic to your website.
What is a Bounce Rate?
Bounce Rate refers to the percentage of bounced visits to your website. A bounced visit occurs when a person leaves your website right after they visit, or from their entrance page. Therefore, Bounce Rate measures how quickly people visit and leave your website without looking around at what you have to offer.
A high Bounce Rate indicates that the page they land on and immediately leave from wasn’t relevant to what they were looking for. Bounce Rate and Exit Rate are different, as Exit Rate refers to visitors who leave from a specific page after browsing your website.
For example:
- If someone goes to your website and then immediately leaves, this goes against your Bounce Rate.
- If someone goes to your website, clicks on another page, and then leaves, this counts against your Exit Rate.
Both factors are used to determine your site’s ranking.
What’s a Good Bounce Rate?
Bounce Rates are different depending on the industry that you’re in, so it can be hard to compare your Bounce Rate to the overall average. You should instead compare your average Bounce Rate to others with similar sites or in similar industries. For example:
- Retail or e-commerce websites – A good rate is 20% to 40%
- Service sites – A good rate is 10% to 30%
- Content websites – A good rate is 40% to 60%
Depending on your site and industry, you should try to aim for the lower of the two numbers for the best results.
How Do You Improve Your Bounce Rate?
If you have a poor rate, your main focus should be on improving it. But how exactly do you do that? Getting your audience to stick around and browse through more of your content can be a challenge, but we’re here to help.
Negative Factors that Hurt Your Bounce Rate
There are many negative factors that can hurt your rate or make people leave quickly, resulting in a single-page session. Those factors include:
- Pop-ups, music, auto-streaming videos, and surveys. If something immediately pops up when someone is trying to read an article or view content on your website, this may dissuade them, causing them to leave shortly after arriving.
- Poor landing page design may also cause people to leave. If the design is off-putting or hard to navigate, people may give up on your site.
- Ads and landing page messages are also something that people consider to be annoying, and may turn people away.
- If the initial page takes too long to load, people may leave and look for another site that doesn’t have as long of a loading time.
It’s important to remember that consumers are fairly impatient when it comes to content. There’s so much content available everywhere that it doesn’t matter if your site doesn’t work for them, they’ll be able to find what they’re looking for somewhere else. This is why it’s so important to lower your rate, so you can prevent them from going to a competing website.
Techniques to Help Improve Your Bounce Rate
Sometimes it can be hard to pin down exactly what needs to be improved, especially when looking at your own site. Having someone look at it with fresh eyes is a great way to receive feedback about how to increase your Bounce Rate and reduce single page views.
However, there are some things that you can try if you notice that your Bounce Rate is suffering, including:
- Posting more relevant, engaging, good content.
- Building a clearer navigation path and menu system
- Having a glossary page that defines any industry terms your clientele may not understand
- Speeding up your loading times on all web pages
- Getting rid of pop-up ads, messages, and surveys
- Making sure that external links open in a new window
How Bounce Rate Will Help You Retain Customers
When your rate is low, potential customers aren’t clicking away as fast. If someone spends the time to look over your website and all you have to offer, they’re much more likely to become a customer. When someone bounces away, they aren’t as likely to return and make a purchase now or in the future.
Hire a Skilled Team to Decrease Your Bounce Rate
If you’re overwhelmed by the idea of figuring out your Bounce Rate and working to decrease it, that’s okay! Our talented team of digital marketeers and SEO specialists can help to make your website better, whether it’s increasing your loading speeds, producing better content, or general website maintenance.
With a skilled team, you can spend more time working on your products and with your clients while we focusing on increasing your search engine optimization.
For more information, contact us online or call us at 407-712-0494.
