We’ve all done it before. Clicked on a website and thought to ourselves’ “ew no” and clicked the back button. In essence, we’ve “bounced” off their website. Officially “bounce rate” can be defined as:
The percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page.
Simple enough…right? So, how do we decrease the chances that someone will bounce off our website after seeing just a single page? How do we keep them and have them dive deeper?
Easy to Follow Design
I’m sure you’ve experienced a time when you’ve been surfing the internet trying to find that one specific answer that you’re looking for. You enter a website and it’s generic looking and hard to follow. How often do you just click the backspace and go back to your Google search because it just wasn’t worth the effort? Well, you just contributed to that website’s high bounce rate.
You can easily prevent bounce rate increase due to this issue by having a design that has easy to follow cues for your visitors. A clean and simplistic menu is a great place to start. Many websites have overly complicated navigations that confuse and, eventually, turn your visitors off.
Another way to reduce bounce rate is to have a striking design for your website. This is usually best achieved when hiring a professional design firm that understands industry standards and who have the success of your business at heart. This will help you avoid looking like just another cookie-cutter site that feels generic.
Calls to action used throughout your website will also help to guide your visitors to dive deeper into your website by appealing to their needs and fulfilling the purpose of your website.
Focus on Your Purpose
Every website has a focus. Why does it exist? Typically to achieve something very specific. Most real estate agents create their website to get leads, but the actual website typically has a purpose of buying or selling homes. So, what would be the most important thing to point visitors into the direction of? Property Search! Another quick example would be for a pizza restaurant to focus on ordering pizza.
If your website has a purpose, you’re more likely to attract the right audience, which leads into the next talk point.
Know Your Audience
Your audience and your purpose go hand in hand. Part of your purpose is the kind of person that your website is trying to attract in order to fulfill its purpose.
A great example of this would be the comparison of two different types of demographics. Take, for instance, millennials versus senior citizens. These two groups use the internet and gather information very differently. Millennials are more likely to want social networks to be tied in, you could market your website on snap chat, or utilize large amounts of live feeds or videos. Senior Citizens may prefer the option to be able to print more documents to save for later or want to be able to contact you by phone, so your contact information should be very visible. Having your audience in mind helps you market and maintain yourself best.
If you can achieve these simple points with your website, you’re bound to see a drastic decrease in the bounce rate of your website. Bounce rate is one of those most important numbers tracked with your Google Analytics account and can definitely, in turn, affect your Google search rankings.