Jargon Buster: What is Bounce rate?

17th December 2018

The first rule of managing a website is ensuring your potential and existing clients can find it. This is obviously guaranteed when you have a solid initial build and ongoing digital marketing to support it in the rankings.

The next step is ensuring that visitors to your site are sticking around long enough to convert. Of course, what’s considered as a conversion will be related to your overall goals. You might, for example, want visitors to contact you or you might want them to buy your products via your online shop.

When a visitor arrives at your website and leaves instantly, this is called a ‘bounce’.

A low bounce rate means that visitors to your site are sticking around to browse for longer, increasing your chances of a conversion. A high bounce rate means they are arriving yet consistently leaving rapidly.

A good digital marketing agency will be able to monitor and report on your bounce rate. They’ll also put measures in place to reduce the amount of bounces your website is experiencing.

What causes a high bounce rate?

A high bounce rate could be caused by many things. Your customer could be experiencing broken links or find themselves frustrated if your pages are taking too long to load.

Similarly, if your website is not responsive across all devices, your visitors will leave when they are unable to access certain functionalities or information.

A high bounce rate will also be generated by visitors who have found your website due to a misplaced search or incorrectly set up paid advertising.

How to reduce bounce rate

Our simple tips will help you to reduce your bounce rate and ensure your web visitors stick around for longer.

Ensure your website provides quality content

We’ve said it before, but content really is king. Keep your visitors around for as long as possible by providing good quality, relevant, and engaging content.
Ensure that headings and subheadings are carefully crafted to capture attention and lead into the content. This is something we found was very effective with our client Bluespace who experienced greater conversions once we introduced clearer calls to action on their site.

If you need some help with improving the customer journey on your website, be sure to read our blog on creating the perfect call to action.

Use video and creative content to capture your audience

You only have a few moments to make an impression and it’s been proven that video and high-quality imagery keeps people around for longer.

Take them on a user-friendly journey

Guide your visitors through your website with clarity. Design clear sections to guide visitors straight to the information they require as swiftly as possible.

Ensure your website works

When we launch a website, we test it thoroughly to ensure that there are no broken links, and everything works perfectly. In addition to this, we ensure that every page loads quickly and that the website displays correctly across all devices.

Ultimately, a website that works will keep your visitors around for longer, so be sure to fully test your website at launch and audit it regularly to make sure there are no broken links.

If you would like help reducing your website’s bounce rate drop us a line on 01603 859007