Your website bounce rate can have a big impact on performance. Not just how your website performs, but also for SEO (free listings in Google search results), paid Google Ads and Social Media Advertising.
It affects your website’s quality score – a high bounce rate is telling Google that the information on there is not relevant to the traffic it is driving and that users didn’t like your page, therefore impacting where you are listed in search results.
What is a website bounce rate and where do I find it?
Your website bounce rate tells you what percentage of people enter your website and then leave immediately without doing anything on the site. If people are leaving right away, it means that they are not finding what they are looking for.
You can see your bounce rate in your Google Analytics home screen. If you don’t have Google Analytics installed – get it. It’s free to use and vital for monitoring website performance. Get in touch if you need help with this.
Visitors can bounce from your site by:
- Clicking on a link to a page on a different website
- Clicking the ‘Back’ button to leave the site
- Closing an open window or tab site
- Typing a new URL
- Session time-out
What is a good bounce rate?
The average website should aim for a bounce rate of between 40-60%, but it can vary by industry and page types. Also, bounce rates do tend to be higher for B2B than B2C. Here are some benchmarks:
- Retail websites: 20-40%
- Service websites: 10-30%
- Content websites: 40-60%
- Lead generation websites: 30-50%
- Portals: 10-30%
- Simple landing pages with one call to action (i.e. add to basket): 70-90%
Factors that affect bounce rate:
- Pop-up ads, surveys, music, or streaming video (music and streaming on a website can have a negative impact on bounce rate)
- Search engine ranking of page (pages that rank higher on irrelevant keywords have higher bounce rates)
- Landing page design
- Ad and landing page messages
- Speed – the longer a website or page takes to load, the higher the bounce rate
- Links to external sites
- Purpose of the page
Tips to improve bounce rate (you may not be able to do all of these, but any you do will be beneficial):
- Showcase your content or products first – above the fold (before people have to scroll down), prioritise these before opt-ins and ads – this is what they have come to see
- Make sure your text size is large enough – especially for users on mobile devices
- Make your webpages as minimalistic as possible – too much content can confuse and deter visitors – focus on giving visitors what they want first
- Use images to break up the content – they are visually appealing to visitors and keep people engaged
- Provide relevant content – create landing pages tailored to your keywords and ads so visitors will find what is promised in the ad copy
- Build a clear navigation path/menu – the user should not need to think about where to go next to find what they are looking for
- If you have a search function – place it in a prominent position
- Make improvements to increase speed
- Don’t use pop-ups – they are distracting, interruptive and annoy the user
- Reduce external links or have them open in a new window
These are general tips which will make a difference, but if you are really serious about your bounce rate and your website performance – then you need to drill down into the analytics to really understand why it is so high.
If you are getting blinded by the technical aspects of this but want to improve your website performance – get in touch. I offer services ranging from:
- Website Audits
- SEO Audits
- Google Analytics set-up & reporting
- Keyword Research
- Google AdWords
I can take on the time-consuming technical elements so you can sit back and watch your website grow your business.
