5 Causes of a High Bounce Rate
Filed under: Internet Marketing, Web Usability —
Doug Williams @
6:22 am
This blog entry was posted on January 20, 2010.
Bounce Rate is the percent of visitors that leave without moving deeper into your website. These people leave directly from the page they entered on. A high bounce rate usually leads to a lower conversion rate. Typical bounce rates are 40-60%. This does vary by the type of site though. eCommerce sites will typically have the lowest bounce rates at 25-45%.
Visitors arrive looking for some answer or solution. If your website doesn’t clearly show them what they are searching for, they are gone in under 3 seconds. There is a science to converting traffic to customers. So, what are the causes of a high bounce rate and what can be done to improve it?
- Attracting the wrong visitors: If your organic SEO or PPC campaign is using the wrong keyword phrases, then you are attracting the wrong visitors. You should be targeting people most likely to convert. These are your target customers. Choose phrases that very closely match what you have to offer.
- Content not relevant: Even if you attract the right visitor, but the content is not relevant to solving the need or problem your visitor has, they will leave. The key is to deeply understand your arriving prospect and then clearly give them what they are after.
- No clear call to action: If your page has no clear path to action or even worse, too many possible actions your visitor will leave. Make decisions easy. After all a confused mind will always say no and just leave.
- Confusing page design: Keep your page layout visually simple. You want people to be able to quickly scan your page and know what it is you offer. Place your offer above the fold so that it is clearly visible to your arriving visitor.
- Confusing navigation: There is nothing worse than arriving to a site where the navigation is made up of obscure words with unclear meaning. If people arrive they will click thru to another page if they see a link to what they want. By using easy to understand navigation you can make sure those visitors don’t bounce.
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Interesting information. I had been curious about this. It seems to be a growing issue.
Comment by Jason Wright — January 20, 2010 @ 8:28 am
Hello,
I have spent some great time to go through this wonderful blog.
I love your original presentations. This is one of the best blog I have ever seen. Congratulations
Very Elegant. Incredible information. Very useful.
MY TIPS AND SUGGESTIONS:
1- KEYWORDS
Watch position and density in every section of your content.
2- CONTENT
Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.
3. BACK LINKS
Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link.
All of these above are incredibly inter-connected.
LAST but more important tip:
THE FIRST TOP LEFT PORTION OF THE SCREEN is the section of your web page where you need to concentrate your space for; keywords, related content, links.
Pasquale
Comment by SEO expert Montreal — January 20, 2010 @ 9:05 am
Pasquale,
Your SEO suggestions are great for driving traffic and they also supply relevance to keep the visitor there. Thank you for your contribution.
Comment by Doug Williams — January 20, 2010 @ 9:13 am