Bounce Rate: The Check Engine Light of Your Website

A website’s bounce rate is a metric that indicates the percentage of people who land on one of your web pages and then leave without clicking to anywhere else on your website – in other words, single-page visitors (Kusinitz, 2014).  High bounce rates can mean a multitude of things, including a website that isn’t user-friendly, keywords that are drawing the wrong kind of visitors, and many other factors. 

If you are looking to convert your website viewers to take some sort of action, then your goal should be getting your bounce rate lowered.  Since a high bounce rate can indicate that your website visitors aren’t looking for more content on your site, clicking on your calls-to-action, or converting into contacts (Kusinitz, 2014).  It’s important to keep in mind the purpose of the page and what it is, that you want the intended viewer to do.  If it’s just a blog post, then you may only be looking to get them to read the post and nothing more.  Look at time on site and the device people are using – you may uncover patters with these additional metrics that could inform how you fix the bounce rate problem (Soskey, 2014).  Bounce rates might indicate something is off with your site’s layout, design, and/or copy, but you need to dig into additional metrics to figure out the solution (Soskey, 2014). 

  

Brendan Egan of Simple SEO Group explained how they took a client from a 50% bounce rate, down to a 5% bounce rate, after launching a newly designed website (2013). 

The client was earning revenue through subscriptions via the website, as well as through advertisements on the actual website.  So in the case of this client, it was extremely important for the client to have a higher number of page views on the website and a lower bounce rate to be able to attract more advertising contracts on the site (Egan, 2013).  In the case of this client, it was important to add graphics, ease of navigation, and declutter the overall site (Egan, 2013). 

What can we learn from this case study? It’s important to point out that this doesn’t have to be tied down to any one particular industry.  Bounce rate is metric that all website admins should be aware of.  No matter how boring you think your industry or topic is, it’s important to:

•        Have a page that is easy to navigate, along with a clean design.
•        Clear call-to-actions
•        Useful and relevant content
•        Well-written copy

Once you get your bounce rate lower, your conversions rate goes up.  Your SEO goes up.  Your CTR goes up.  Your rankings go up.  Bounce rate is a powerful metric – it actually shapes the way that a site ranks, because it’s one of the few user-dependent features of a website’s ranking (Patel, 2014).  By reducing your bounce rate, you are paving the way for success in so many other areas (Patel, 2014).   

Are there any other ways that you would recommend trying to reduce your site’s bounce rate? 

References

Egan, B. (2013, January 23). Case study: How web design affects bounce rate. Retrieved from http://www.simpleseogroup.com/case-study-how-web-design-affects-bounce-rate/

Kusinitz, S. (2014, July 17). How to decrease your website's bounce rate [Infographic]. Retrieved from http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/decrease-website-bounce-rate-infographic

Patel, N. (2014, August 11). The no b.s. guide to reducing your website's bounce rate. Retrieved from http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/reduce-website-bounce-rate

Soskey, G. (2014, April 28). What is bounce rate (and how can I fix mine)? Retrieved from http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-bounce-rate-fix