“What the heck is a bounce rate?” You may be asking yourself.
Google best defines it as:
The single-page sessions divided by all sessions, or the percentage of all sessions on your site in which users viewed only a single page and triggered only a single request to the server.
Simplified, this is the percentage of folks or users abandoning your website after visiting a single page.
What is a good bounce rate?
This ranges from industry to industry but on average range:
80%+ is very bad
70 – 80% is poor
50 – 70% is average
30 – 50% is excellent
20% or below is likely a tracking error
Here’s a breakdown of what it could look like per industry.
To reduce your bounce rate, first identify your top pages with the highest bounce rate. You can do this by going to Google Analytics and clicking on Behavior » Site Content » Landing Pages
Still lost? No worries! Here’s some top tips to help reduce your bounce rate(s).
Tip 1: Providing a Better Experience
This seems self explanatory but it in fact could be a bit more in-depth. Several areas to review in this section would be:
- Is my website usable? (Mobile, desktop friendly)
- Is it a functioning website? (Has purpose, relevant content)
- Is my website optimized? (fast loading content)
These are just basic questions that point to areas where users or visitors can drop off if not delivered online well.
Tip 2: Targeting your Engaged Users
This entails a little research around your bounced users. Is there specific page or content topic that bounces most? How can you make that area more approachable and easier to access to your users or visitors?
By knowing what is working you can better apply ways to engage things that aren’t. Work with content that IS getting the most appeal and recycle it in ways that would best apply to your users.
Apply that same logic to the content that is highest in bounce rate.
Tip 3: Optimize Your Call to Action
Have you checked out your latest freebie from a customer point of view Have you tested how a new user signs up for your latest emails?
Sometimes its those little things that detour people away or worse, leaves a unpolished or unprofessional impression.
We love the rule of K.I.S.S: Keep it Simple, Savvy?
Don’t give a ton of things away but make it clear that you are an established reference of knowledge and/ or expertise.
Tip 4: Strong Content Planning
Truth: we wrote this post during a pandemic.
We realize that marketing during these specific times are much different then before. With most of us having more time on our hands then ever before we’re also finding more inept ways to plan ahead.
Having a strong monthly/ weekly routine is vital to consistent content.
Ensure that when you’re posting on your blog your social mediums are matching that content. Know that your latest posts releases next week? Release a few teaser snippets on Instagram and Facebook Stories or create that epic flatlay that teases what the topic is all about.
The biggest part about planning is strategizing where you want to go. Setting goals for ‘x’ amount of views per post / week / month can also help push you toward lowering your bounce rate.
We consider ourselves pretty savvy on that end! Contact us if you need help in this specific area!
Tip 5: Improve your Site Speed
This is a great rule of thumb if your website is taking longer than 8 seconds to load, you’re loosing viewers attention.
If you are using a SSL certificate on your website but your site still shows “Not Secure” that could be because of smaller issues not optimized on your site.
Luckily we use a few tools when we build websites for our clients that help them get the most optimized speeds:
- Pingdom – Page Speed Checker
- WhyNoPadlock – SSL Optimization Scanner
- Imagify Image Optimizer – Plugin that sizes down images for faster loading
- Google Page Speed – Page Speed Checker
