Bounce rate is one of the metrics that you don’t want to see skyrocket every time you review your website’s analytics data. It is defined as the number of visitors who view a single page on your website and leave without engaging in any further meaningful interaction on the landing page, like clicking on a link, filling out a survey form, or adding a product to their cart.
Why Is Bounce Rate Important?
Your goal as a digital marketer or online store owner is to drive visitors to your website and have them buy from your business. But you also want visitors to keep viewing other pages on your website to encourage them to purchase more products from you. If a user visits one of your web pages and exits right away, it means that they either don’t like what they see or it doesn’t match what they are searching for.
Monitoring your website’s bounce rate is therefore essential because it provides a lot of valuable insights, which you can use in improving your marketing strategy. For example, your landing page is the product description of the item you are selling. A user may leave the page if they don’t find the content informative or relevant to their needs and wants. In this case, review, update, or re-write the content to highlight not only the features of the products but also explain how having your product improves the user’s daily life.
What Is Considered a Good Bounce Rate?
To calculate the bounce rate, you get the number of single-hit sessions and divide it by the total number of visits to your website. The definition of a good bounce rate differs based on the industry. To give you an idea, below are the benchmarks for good bounce rates by industry:
- Retail Sites – 20% to 40%
- Service Sites – 10% to 30%
- Content Sites – 40% to 60%
- Blog Pages – 70% to 90%
- Lead Generation – 30% to 50%
Let’s say you’re running an e-commerce website. Since your aim is to sell merchandise, you’ll want visitors to purchase the product they are looking at. You’ll also want them to browse other pages on your website as they could discover other items that they’d want to buy. Meanwhile, if you have a blog site, you can expect a high bounce rate as readers of your blog leave after reading the content on the page.
How Can You Lower Your Website’s Bounce Rate?
Ideally, you’ll want to keep your website’s bounce rate low or between 40% and 55%. To maintain a good bounce rate, it is essential to understand why visitors don’t stay long on your website. Some visitors may leave because they have read the information that they need, which isn’t a bad thing. However, there are other reasons that could prompt users to exit your webpage, like the design and layout of your pages, the loading speed, the ease of navigation, or the content that you’re sharing. Here are some tips to help you improve the bounce rate of your website:
Conduct a Bounce Rate Audit
You can use a website analytics tool, like Google Analytics, to conduct an audit of the bounce rate of your website. Review the bounce rates of individual web pages to distinguish the web pages that are performing well from those that need improvement. The insights you get from the audit can help you think of ways to improve your marketing strategy.
Create Better Content
People follow links to your web pages because they expect to find the information that they seek. By creating fresh, relevant, and compelling content, you can attract the interest of site visitors and gain their trust in your brand. Also, use other forms of content like videos, images, and infographics to make your website look more appealing.
Improve Website Readability
Your website can deliver high-quality content, but if the website has poor readability, it could drive users to exit your webpage in a matter of seconds. A good website design typically has large fonts and black text on a white background. Try to avoid writing large chunks of paragraphs and keep sentences concise.
Enhance User Experience
Poor website construction is another reason visitors immediately leave a page after viewing it. If your website contains broken links, has a slow loading speed, or is difficult to navigate, it could easily turn visitors away. Conducting site maintenance regularly can help ensure it works smoothly on any device.
