If you regularly view your analytics and data from your website traffic (and you really should be doing) then one stat you may see is the bounce rate. Many people simply gloss over this, but you really shouldn’t. So why is it so important to pay attention to your bounce rate? Well, a high bounce rate is bad and could be a sign of problems on your website, be it onsite itself or with your marketing, especially if you use PPC or paid marketing. Your targeting could be wrong, and it could mean your digital marketing strategy or website needs amending and fast.
When a visitor comes to your website, lands on the page then leaves without performing any action at all, even a click to another page on your site, this is known as a bounce. Essentially, they came and went in a matter of seconds and didn’t hang around to see what you offered. Address your bounce rate and you could see sales or enquiries increase as well as your marketing spend dropping, or at the very least being used more wisely, returning a better ROI for your business. There are 7 ways in which you can help reduce your bounce rate as follows:
Relevant Page Content
Nothing is more frustrating as a website visitor then clicking on a page to discover it’s not the relevant content, product or service you were made to believe. This normally means a quick exit and they leave without ever performing any action. Always make sure the landing page from any advert is relevant to the advert content. If your page ranks in the search engines for blue wellies but they land on your page and you only sell pink trainers then this will likely lead to a bounce from the site visitor. Always ensure the page content is what your advert or metatag titles and descriptions say it is.
Page Speed
Google now takes into account site speed when deciding where to rank websites in the free organic listing results. This reason alone should be enough for you to pay attention to your site speed. However, if your site is slow and takes ages to load then chances are the site visitor will disappear as quick as they arrived on your site. Many people browse whilst walking, doing small chores and inbetween work tasks, so if your site doesn’t load fast expect them to leave before any content has loaded. Good site speed is so essential to the success of any website.
Viewable Call to Actions
If your website or landing page is one that offers a quote, and you can’t see any visible forms or call to action text content such as “Quote Online” or “Free Quote Now” then people are more likely to leave without completing any action. If you use PPC and your advert says quote online now, yet when they visit your site there’s no option to then this also could put people off, resulting in a bounce. Always make sure if a site visitor is required to perform an action that they can clearly see where on the landing page.
Simple Navigation Process
You only have so many clicks a site visitor will perform before they get bored and move on if they can’t find what they are looking for. People get frustrated and having to click multiple times will quickly persuade them to look elsewhere. Having a simple and clean navigation process will always encourage people to stay on your site. Being able to find what they want in just a matter of a few clicks will encourage visitor interaction which is more likely to lead to an action be it form enquiry, purchase or quote request.
Minimise Onsite Disruption
When a visitor lands on your website if they are confronted with an abundance of information and graphics this could be detrimental to the action you want them to perform. Being overwhelmed with options and clickable links, images and requests could put people off staying. Once a site visitor hits your web page you only have so many seconds to grab their attention and entice them to stay. Having too much going on is almost as bad as having too little information on your web page. Keep the content clean and simple with only the vital information being displayed the visitor needs to make an informed decision on their next move. Taglines, bullet points and clear call to actions all help.
Structured PPC Campaigns
If you use PPC marketing such as Google Ads, then each advert you create will link to a page you choose direct from the advert itself. This means if the landing page the visitor clicks on is not related or relevant to the advert text content then this will likely result in a bounce. If your advert text is all about car insurance and they land on your website to a page dedicated to a different product say health insurance then the visitor will quickly leave. You should always select the relevant landing page to the advert, so it reduces the amount of clicks your visitor needs to make and they can see as soon as the page loads (fast site speed again) you can provide what they are actively searching for. This is why it’s so important to have a structured PPC campaign with dedicated adverts per product or service so you can send them direct to the relevant pages in just one click, which in turn will reduce your bounce rate.
