Why Bounce Rate Matters and 10 Ways to Reduce it

Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page, i.e. a bounce is a visit where one page was viewed and the visit ended. I’ve often been asked “why does this metric matter, I pay attention to pages/visit”? The answer is it matters greatly for two reasons.

First, compare two equally visited sites, one with average pages/visit of 10 and a bounce rate of 80% versus another site with average pages/visit of 5 with a bounce rate of 20%. If you only look at pages/visit you would think the first site has better quality content but that could not be further from the truth. If 80% of the people hitting the site leave immediately something is terribly wrong. The goal of a website is ultimately to give people some product or service and make money in the process, therefore bounce rate is actually more important than pages/visit.

The second reason bounce rate should matter to you is search engines have begun using this metric in their organic results in an effort to align queries with relevant content. Rightfully so in my opinion, the better targeted my search results the happier I am. Ignoring this metric could send your organic placements into the gutter.

Here is a List of 10 things should focus on to minimize Bounce Rate:

1. Product Price too High – Shop the competition or provide some other value add that justifies your higher price. Experiment with removing the price from the landing page(s) if you cannot compete in that category.
2. Poor Navigation – If a user does not get exactly what they want they will click a link or two if they think it will yield results. Use clear global navigation, bread crumbs and dynamic navigation such as “customers who purchased this product also purchased…”.
3. Unprofessional Look/Feel – This is one of my personal pet peeves. If I see a homemade looking site, pages clearly missing content, inconsistent look and feel, broken links, poor spelling/grammar or any other clue that this site was thrown together and not well maintained I will not do business with them. Have a 3rd party go through your site with a fine tooth comb and scrutinize anything appearing unprofessional.
4. Poorly Targeted Keywords – It takes time to choose, write and rank for the right keywords. The chances that you get it right on your first attempt are slim to none. Evaluate the bounce rates of your various keywords and modify the poor performers.
5. Insufficient Product Information – Remember the term FSDI (features, specifications, description and Images). There is a reason major retailers have those handy little tabbed informational applets embedded in product pages. Review each of these 4 categories and make sure you do a good job of completely covering all angles of a product.
6. Presentation – Even the most comprehensive well priced product page will perform poorly if all the information is below the fold and the user never sees it. Make sure you give relevant attractive content the best page real-estate.
7. External Links – Be careful not to give too many options that steer people away from your website unless you are a blog and they are paid links. Retail product pages should never have paid search terms on them. Be careful with links to manufacturers or others that encourage a visit to leave the site. If you must have them be sure to have the link open in a new window.
8. Poor Page Performance – Long load times or improperly rendered pages will certainly irritate people and almost always result in a bounce. Check load times with an external monitor service like WebsiteHawk (free) and test your site thoroughly in all popular browsers.
9. Requiring Login for More Information – Retailers are notorious for not presenting shipping costs until you reach the checkout. These hassles are a quick way to lose customers. Put a shipping calculator or flat rate shipping information on the product page. Xekoshop has done well with its “always free shipping” banner that immediately sets expectations.
10. Capture the Near Misses – Even if you have perfectly optimized a page it will still be hit by people looking for something similar from time to time. Make sure closely related products, reviews, and category headers are easily visible for these visits.

Tags: bounce rate, website traffic