Bounce Rate: Can Yours Be Improved?
Typical bounce rates for the e-commerce sites we work with are below 50%.
That means that if one hundred people visit the site, somewhere around 50 visitors will leave without clicking a single link.
But that's an average.
What if your website's bounce rate is higher than that? Should you settle for a high bounce rate? Absolutely not! Consider these typical reasons people why people bounce off a site.
Faulty Keywords If your keywords don't accurately reflect what your site content discusses, you'll get unrelated traffic that won't stick around.
Granted, sometimes problem lies with Google's inability to delineate two different meanings for the same word, but more often, you can trace the difficulty to keyword selection.
By making sure your content matches your keywords, you'll generate targeted traffic that will be more likely to browse.
Slow Load Time This generation of web users expects instant results.
If they have to wait more than 6 or 8 seconds for your page to load, they're outta there.
Use Google Webmaster Tools to determine the load times for your website and then look at the trend for the past month or two.
Is the load time rising or falling? Another free tool is Yahoo's YSlow which is a Firefox plug-in which can help you determine the cause of a page's slow load time.
Failure to Answer Visitor's Question Why do visitors come to your site? Typically, they're looking for the answer to a question.
They've implicitly asked that question by typing a phrase into a search box and then clicking on your website hoping to see the answer.
Bounce rates improve with increased customer engagement.
Start by answering user questions immediately on the landing page in order to capture their attention.
Then keep them moving forward by showing them how to get to additional information or take the next step.
Unclear Call To Action A clear call to action should be a top priority to increase your website's conversion rate.
Even if you do everything else right, a weak or unclear call to action will give the visitor an excuse to leave your site.
He's found the information he needs, so why stick around? By including a persuasive and well-designed call to action, you can entice him to find out more by signing up for your newsletter, subscribing to your blog, or taking another step that progresses him further toward his goals.
That means that if one hundred people visit the site, somewhere around 50 visitors will leave without clicking a single link.
But that's an average.
What if your website's bounce rate is higher than that? Should you settle for a high bounce rate? Absolutely not! Consider these typical reasons people why people bounce off a site.
Faulty Keywords If your keywords don't accurately reflect what your site content discusses, you'll get unrelated traffic that won't stick around.
Granted, sometimes problem lies with Google's inability to delineate two different meanings for the same word, but more often, you can trace the difficulty to keyword selection.
By making sure your content matches your keywords, you'll generate targeted traffic that will be more likely to browse.
Slow Load Time This generation of web users expects instant results.
If they have to wait more than 6 or 8 seconds for your page to load, they're outta there.
Use Google Webmaster Tools to determine the load times for your website and then look at the trend for the past month or two.
Is the load time rising or falling? Another free tool is Yahoo's YSlow which is a Firefox plug-in which can help you determine the cause of a page's slow load time.
Failure to Answer Visitor's Question Why do visitors come to your site? Typically, they're looking for the answer to a question.
They've implicitly asked that question by typing a phrase into a search box and then clicking on your website hoping to see the answer.
Bounce rates improve with increased customer engagement.
Start by answering user questions immediately on the landing page in order to capture their attention.
Then keep them moving forward by showing them how to get to additional information or take the next step.
Unclear Call To Action A clear call to action should be a top priority to increase your website's conversion rate.
Even if you do everything else right, a weak or unclear call to action will give the visitor an excuse to leave your site.
He's found the information he needs, so why stick around? By including a persuasive and well-designed call to action, you can entice him to find out more by signing up for your newsletter, subscribing to your blog, or taking another step that progresses him further toward his goals.
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