How To: Fix Your Website’s High Bounce Rate

Posted by Jason Kienbaum on Aug 5, 2010 in Online Marketing, Small Business Marketing | 43 comments

Do you know what your website bounce rate is? It is the most important static that we should be aware of when looking at how effective our website is. The bounce rate is simple to understand however fixing it could take some trial and error to find the problem. The bounce rate is the measure of the times a new visitor comes to your website and after viewing one page clicks out right away. Which means right away they saw something that they didn’t like on your website or it was not what they were looking for. So how do we fix a high bounce rate?

First you should know if your bounce rate is over 60% then it is worth looking into why people are leaving your website. If your bounce rate is under 60 then you are doing okay.

Google analytics
So in order to determine if your bounce rate is over or under 60% you’re going to need the help of Google analytics and don’t worry the service is free. Simply create an account and you will be provided with some HTML code that needs to be embedded into the body your website. Once that is done you will be able to find your bounce and a lot more information about your website. It’s a must have web tool.

Reevaluate your homepage
If you have a high bounce rate I would first take a look at your homepage since that is probably the page that you are directing most of your traffic to and the homepage might be the only page that they see before leaving. The first thing that needs to come through clearly on your homepage is what this website is for and the visitor should know why they need to be at your website. Look at the information that you have placed on the homepage; is everything there necessary and is it helping to increase retention or is it just there to take up space. Here are some of the must have features that could help increase retention and control your bounce rate:
• New content
• Search bar
• Deals you are offering
• Registration for members and frequent visitors
• Logo and mission plus a little piece about your business.

Landing pages

Most of us have used Google Adwords or some sort of sponsored links on the internet before and this could be leading to a high bounce rate. A lot of it has to do with the stage of the buying cycle that the customer is in and how we write our ads will determine if they click on our ad or not. If your ad is targeted to a customer in the final stage of the buying cycle for a product you offer, make sure to send them directly to where they can buy the product on your website. Many people make the mistake of sending the potential buyer to just their homepage where the product cannot be found. The chances that some will actually click another link to find the product are highly unlikely. You have a better chance of seeing Santa Claus. What they will do is hit the back button and never come back.

This should give you a good start to improving your bounce rate!

Question of the day:

How important is the bounce rate to you?

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To Answer your question:

YES! Bounce is very important. Especially when broken down by traffic source. Typically, traffic from natural search has the lowest bounce rate where as traffic from PPC, Banner and social media are higher.

Example, if Natural bounce is 40%, then expect to see 60% from PPC and 80% or higher from Banner. Typically this is due to sloppy media buys along with landing pages (as you pointed out) not matching the AdWords or Banner. In some rare cases, really good PPC and media companies can out perform natural bounce. Sadly when this happens it largely goes unrewarded as people don’t yet measure effectiveness in such a way.