As a growing entrepreneur, you probably know that simply having a business website is not enough. For your business to thrive online, you have to learn how to optimize your website for your audience as well.
And one of the top measures of a highly optimized website is a good bounce rate.
This article will help you understand things like:
- What exactly is a website’s bounce rate?
- Why should I care about my website’s bounce rate?
- What’s the ideal bounce rate for a website?
- Why do people “bounce” from my website?
We’ll cover these questions in this article, as well as provide you with relevant resources to help you learn more.
First of all…
What exactly is a website’s bounce rate?
The quick answer: A website’s bounce rate is simply the percentage of people that leave your website without taking any further action, such as clicking links or submitting a contact form.
To illustrate: You looked up “Is Elton John a knight?” on Google (‘cause you got curious, you know?)
You click on Wikipedia, but instead of giving you a yes or no answer, it gives you sixteen long paragraphs about Elton’s life and career.
So you decide to leave Wikipedia to look for a website that gives you a direct answer to your question.
That act of leaving Wikipedia, without doing anything else within the site besides looking at it, is called bouncing.
So if a lot of people leave or bounce from your website, you’re gonna have a high bounce rate. If your website is doing a good job of keeping your audience’s attention, then you may have an average or low bounce rate.
But you may be wondering…
Why should I care about my website’s bounce rate?
Bounce rates can tell you a lot about your website and your audience. Here are just some of the insights you can gather:
—– Conversion: Depending on the website and your goals, a high bounce rate can mean that your visitors aren’t interested enough to stay and follow through with your desired call to action.
—– Google Rank: Google is one tough cookie to impress. Having a high bounce rate tells Google that your page is not worth recommending to its users.
—– Website issues: If people are quickly bouncing from your website, that could mean that their experiencing issues with it, such as slow loading time or an old interface.
—– Content problems: Like our Wikipedia example, if your audience doesn’t resonate with your content or they can’t find what they need, they bounce within a few seconds. A high bounce rate can mean that your website content may need some tweaking and optimizing in order to engage your audience until they do your desired action.
Understanding your website’s bounce rate and the reason behind it can give you powerful insights on how to improve your website and thrive online.
However, this begs the question…
What’s the ideal bounce rate for my website?
Actually, it depends.
Generally, according to siegemedia, a good bounce rate is somewhere “under or around 50%,” but it still depends on the website or page, its goals, and your industry.
For example, in the same study by siegemedia, they found that the average bounce rate for travel websites is 82.58%, while the eCommerce industry has an average rate of 54.54%.
So after checking your website’s bounce rate, it might also be a good idea to research the average and ideal bounce rates for other websites in your niche and industry.
However, you should also know that having a high bounce rate isn’t always a bad thing. Again, it depends on your goals.
According to Google, “if the success of your site depends on users viewing more than one page, then, yes, a high bounce rate is bad.”
On the other hand, if you have a single-page website or a blog, then you shouldn’t worry too much about having a high bounce rate.
But why do people “bounce” from your website, anyway?
That’s a great question. Investigating the answer to this question will help you pinpoint which area of your website needs improvement.
So here are some of the reasons why your website may have a high bounce rate:
1. Unmet expectations
One of the reasons why people leave a website is because the content did not meet their expectations. This could be because of:
—– Misleading titles
—– Misleading meta descriptions (the preview of text you get under the webpage’s title in the search results)
—– Not enough information
Copy (or the words that fill your website) is an integral part of your website. That’s why optimizing the titles, headlines, and body of text you display on every page is extremely important, if you want to keep your visitors’ attention and convert them into customers.
SEO (or Search Engine Optimization) can help fix this, but also creating high-quality and powerful written content to hook your audience.
PSST! We have a creative and inspired team to help you craft compelling copy for your website, as well as blog posts.
We also have a downloadable Blog Writing resource available in our Resource Library!
2. Slow loading time
On average, people only spend about 54 seconds on a single web page. That means if your website takes a hot minute to fully load, your visitors are going to leave.
You can test your website’s loading speed by using tools such as the Pingdom Website Speed Test or GTmetrix.
3. Poor UX (User Experience)
Remember: your website should be designed to be visited by other people. That means your website should be as welcoming as possible.
Here are a few guide questions to help you out:
—– Is my website easy to navigate?
—– Do I have too many pop-up ads or CTAs that may annoy my viewers?
—– Is my website mobile-friendly? Can it be accessed on any device?
If you’re hesitant to work with a professional UX designer, you can ask a friend or family member to explore your website and point out things that affect their user experience while browsing.
4. Bad web design
Poor web designing or using old interfaces can also affect your website’s bounce rate.
Naturally, humans are drawn to beautiful things. And if you can captivate your visitors with a clean and captivating web design that fits your business, you can keep their attention however long you want.
PSST! Our web design team can help you spruce up your website too! Here’s a before and after shot for one of our clients.
5. Technical errors
Of course, one of the obvious reasons for a website’s high bounce rate is if there are technical issues within your website.
And if your visitors continue to experience errors within your business’ website, they probably won’t be back anymore. Not to mention that Google can also stop recommending your website or putting you on their search results if they find out it’s broken.
Staying on top of your website’s bugs, issues, and updates can help keep your website secure and running smoothly. This level of tech support should be available if you’re working with a reliable web hosting company or specialist.
As a business owner, understanding your website’s bounce rate can help you find ways to improve your digital and content marketing, as well as grow your business online.
How can The Biz Spa help you with your website? Definitely more ways than one!
We’ve got a reliable and creative team to help your business with:
—– Web hosting
—– Web design
—– FREE 30-minute consultation about your digital marketing strategy
Want to start now? Call 833-4-BizSpa or click here.