How to dramatically improve your bounce rate to 7.76%
Your bounce rate may come second in your book to other metrics such as number of visits or page views on your website, but it is something that many small businesses can leverage if they put it to the forefront.
After checking the Marketing Eye google analytics account yesterday, as I do every day, I paid special attention to how the website bounce rate was going. I had just been to a number of my client's google analytics accounts and noticed that theirs ranged from 35 percent to 80 percent - depending on whether they allow Marketing Eye to do their SEO and invest in creating content to drive connections.
For those who are uncertain what a bounce rate is, it simply is a record of the "bounce" that occurs when a visitor goes to your website, reads a page or looks at a page, then leaves your website. A "bounce rate" is the percentage of total visitors that come to your website that then bounce off of it.
Theoretically, the lower your website's bounce rate, the better your conversion rate, or at least the higher the potential conversions, because more of the people who visit your website like what they see, and click around on your content.
According to Weidert Group, 'a good bounce rate would be anything under 50-60 percent. A large factor influencing bounce rate is what kind of page you're looking at and what the content is on that page. If a page links to other pages, say, products you make or services , then a bounce rate of above 60 percent wouldn't be out of the norm.'
Internet Marketing Ninjas, Trevor Stolber says normal bounce rates can be broken up as the following:
A bounce rate of:
50% or less is excellent
60-70% is typical
70-80% is poor
80% plus is very bad.
There are a number of areas that Marketing Eye focuses on to ensure that our bounce rate is low, however, I honestly am completely surprised at just how low it is.
These include:
1. Content marketing strategy: Marketing Eye has a content marketing strategy that we revisit every quarter. The strategy includes improving page content, changing keywords that are under-performing, writing blogs daily or at the minimum of two per week and adding pages that are relevant to the website.
2. Understand your visitors to your website: If you don't map out the visitors experience and segment who they are and what they are looking for, then you will never have a low bounce rate. It is simply impossible. Break up your visitors into different segments and map out their experience. Ensure that their experience is relevant, thought provoking and that it has calls to action.
3. Search Engine Optimization: We have full-time employees who manage our websites. They are as passionate as I am about bounce rates and continually strive to improve the performance of our website. They also drive what content is going to be placed on the website by ensuring our writers are nimble and don't fall into the trap of writing for themselves rather than the audience.
The statistics that matter:
The visitors have gone down in the past month significantly as we have not been developing as much content and our blogs are infrequent. This is the busiest time of year for our company, so we are all madly putting clients first and preparing for the year ahead.
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BOUNCE RATE: 7.76%
VISITORS: 7,553
PAGE VIEWS: 23,112
PAGES: 3.06
TIME ON SITE: 6.11 mins
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How does your bounce rate match up to others in your industry?
1. Product information pages: Min: 3.25% - Max: 50% - Average: 33.03%2. Lead generation sites: Min: 5.24% - Max: 81% - Average: 47.38%
3. Web Stores and eCommerce sites: Min: 14.3% - Max: 68% - Average: 33.9%
4. News and media sites: Min: 25% - Max: 81.4% - Average: 55.56%
5. Other types of sites: Min: 13% - Max: 85% - Average: 41.13%
Source: www.conversionvoodoo.com
As a small business, engaging your visitors online in a meaningful way means more sales. It is as simple as that. Too many small business owners are still not investing enough in their websites and while they may have a budget for adwords and pay-per-click, they think that that alone will bring sales.
My advice to you if your bounce rate is high: DON'T START 2014 THROWING AWAY VALUABLE MARKETING DOLLARS ON THE WRONG ONLINE STRATEGY.
Invest heavily in your website and map out your visitors experience - you will see the results in your sales.
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comments ( 4 )
Amin
19 Nov 2016That's great insight. In our experience, the best way to reduce the bounce rate is to have engaging content. Eye catching images are also found readers spending more time on the page.
ReplyEmma
29 Jul 2014The more relevant your content is, the lower the bounce rate. Also by making your site "sticky" with relevant internal links will keep visitors on your site for longer.
ReplyEmma
29 Jul 2014The more relevant your content is, the lower the bounce rate. Also by making your site "sticky" with relevant internal links will keep visitors on your site for longer.
ReplyMike Burns
08 Jan 2014Everything is very open with a precise explanation of the challenges.
ReplyIt was truly informative. Your website is extremely helpful.
Thanks for sharing!