Reducing Bounce Rates

[WorksIQ]

Our bounce rates for UK website traffic seem pretty high to me. It was 66% last month according to Google Analytics. I can see that small screen / mobile devices account for about 7% of those bounces which I can understand. Can anyone suggest some obvious things to check or fix? Thanks.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

How many pages on the site, what is the time on site like for the bounces? nowt wrong with a bounce rate being high if they are doing what you want them to do.

 

[JonathanSEO]

Our bounce rates for UK website traffic seem pretty high to me. It was 66% last month according to Google Analytics. I can see that small screen / mobile devices account for about 7% of those bounces which I can understand. Can anyone suggest some obvious things to check or fix? Thanks.

Go to Content > Landing Pages and compare bounce rates of them to the site average.

You can find problem pages and good ones from that.

 

[webgeek]

Bounce rate averages are often times like 'customer' averages.

Making decisions based on a person with 1 breast, 1 testicle and assorted other genetic variations based on blending a man and woman then dividing them identically will often not help you succeed.

Segment them with more granularity...

You may find that certain keyword(s) have massively higher bounce rates than others. You may find that certain countries, browser types, etc, are where the weak link is...

Use these signals to help determine that in fact the site isn't responsive and can't be easily used on anything smaller than a desktop, or that you've been getting traffic for unrelated phrases or from foreign visitors who aren't interested in a UK only provider.

In cases where there's little variation, start thinking big-picture. Why would people from everywhere, using assorted search terms, browsers, networks, etc, all bounce at a higher rate than other pages on the same site? Or all bounce on the site higher than other similar sites?

When you run the page speed check and find that load times are being measured with calendars instead of stop watches... or that any browser other than Chrome Beta 27 displays error messages... and so on.

Often I'm finding a fundamental disconnect between page content and search intent. A user is looking for help and information, but landing on an expensive pitch page with little helpful information. Other cases, a user is looking to buy and can't find pricing (or finds pricing and faints).

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Looking at your homepage, I wonder if it's an issue to to with message-to-market match.

Are you bringing in people who are right for your product?
Is your product right for your target market?
Are you framing it in a way where it seems right?

For the answer to the first question, you should look at bounce rates for different traffic sources. Are they similar across the board? Or do you see some traffic sources with low bounce rates? Does this pattern make sense logically?

If it's bad across the board, what do people expect from your advertising? How does that compare to what they see on your site?

Hope this helps,

Steve

 

[fisicx]

As has been suggested, the overall bounce rate means nothing. You need to look at each page and see how it performs.

For example you could have a landing page from a search that has 100% bounce because its the wrong page for that search. Or you could have a page with a low bounce but it doesn't actually convert.

Analyse your Analytics and work what the bounce rate really means across the whole site.

 

[andygambles]

Other cases, a user is looking to buy and can't find pricing (or finds pricing and faints).

If they faint surely the bounce rate would be low

 

[CalvinHarris]

you could do one of those really annoying pop ups when they leave, asking them to fill in a feedback form?

 

[CalvinHarris]

actually, dont do that, they're annoying!

 

[WorksIQ]

Thanks for all your comments. This has all been very helpful. In answer to your questions/suggestions:

OldWelshGuy -There's about 50 pages on the site. Avg. Visit Duration for the bounces is 00:00:00. I think zero is to be expected because there's no second page view from which to calculate a duration. Or am I missing something?

JonathanSEO - In reviewing the landing pages I could see that bookmarks to our login page was skewing the results. I excluded those and bounce rate came down by 11%.

webgeek - Yes, agree with your comments re:segmentation. I was only reviewing UK traffic. I can also see our stats are affected by a freebie we give away on one page. Will retest on other browsers. Page speed is probably whole new thread as our TTFB was pretty poor last time I checked.

Steve - I think once you get down to it this is the area that needs the most work/thought. There's no point making a prospecting call then sending them to a page/site that doesn't engage them or mirror the message you were trying to get across.

fisicx - Yep I have a pretty good idea now of what pages & visitors I need to concentrate on now.

Calvin - Quite often we know specifically who is on our website, that's what our software does. So maybe I'll ring a few of them and get some feedback about the website.

 

[andygambles]

Try putting Clicky on your site for a bit. Clicky actually measures time spent on a page even if they do not visit a second page. They only count a user as a bounce if they leave within the first 10 seconds.

 

[fisicx]

^^^agree 100%

Clicky is far far superior to google Analytics.

Combined with crazy egg heat mapping you will have all the data you need.

 

[WorksIQ]

Thanks guys, I'll check it out.

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

It really depends on the duration they stay on the page.

If they leave quite quickly, then there's an issue with your headline and the page's ability to grab the attention of target prospects and spike their initial interest.

If they stay longer, then the overall copy is failing to create enough interest and desire in your product or service even after reading the copy.

Of course, it can also go beyond that in-terms of the quality of traffic. No matter how good your sales copy is, you're going to get high bounce rates and low conversions if the people you're directing to your website don't fit your target audience and therefore aren't interested in what you're selling.

 

[JonathanSEO]

Looking at your homepage, I wonder if it's an issue to to with message-to-market match.

I mentioned the homepage of the original posters site and my comment was promptly deleted with a warning received for "taking site reviews outside of the paid area" which won't be tolerated.

I have no complaints about the rules being enforced, but I'd like consistency.

Should UK Business Forums take the plunge and invest in forum rule technology to remove human error?

 

[WorksIQ]

first try to avoid User confusion (Remove unnecessary ads) from Your Website.
Go for Clear url navigations .
Image optimisation

We used an off the shelf wordpress template as a quick way to get a website up and running. The templates look ok at first but when you flesh them out the navigation gets cluttered and the calls to action get lost. This is an area we need to work on.

 

[WorksIQ]

No matter how good your sales copy is, you're going to get high bounce rates and low conversions if the people you're directing to your website don't fit your target audience and therefore aren't interested in what you're selling.

We have a modular product so maybe we should split each module into a separate subdomain? A service desk manager isn't going to be interested in reading about website visitor tracking and vice-versa. It would probably help our seo too?