Bounce Rate Does it Really Matter?

Your bounce rate will tell you what percentage of your visitors are visiting your site and then leaving without visiting any other pages. If your bounce rate is high, it means that there is a high percentage of people doing this and, of course, if it is low, the opposite is true. That is it in a nutshell.

The thing to remember is this: Google does not like a high bounce rate, and doing what Goggle likes is very important if you want your site to rank highly in the Google organic search listings. And, the higher your site ranks, the more visitors it will get, which should translate into more sales (if, of course, you are selling something).

Relevant & Useful

The more relevant and useful your site is to your visitors, the longer they will usually stay on it. And that is the very reason that Google likes a low bounce rate.

Google wants their search engine to be the biggest and the best in the world (which it currently is), and this means delivering highly relevant content to its users.

I suppose in an ideal world, Google would like the first site that a visitor lands on to have everything that that visitor is looking for, without any need to visit any other site. I know this won’t ever happen, but hopefully, you see my point.

The big G wants great content and relevancy, and that is why it places such importance on bounce rate. If the stats show that your visitors are leaving your site shortly after landing on it, and without clicking through to any of your other pages, it could well be that it doesn’t contain the information that they thought it would. We have all seen these sites – the description in the listing promises the world but when we go to the actual site, the content is rubbish and full of adverts.

How Do You Keep It Low?

So how do you keep your bounce rate low?

Tip 1

First and foremost, deliver great, and relevant, content.

The description that appears below your link in the search listings should reflect accurately what is on your page.

We have a saying here in the UK that says “it should do exactly what it says on the tin”. If your page doesn’t do what it says on the tin, your visitors will leave pretty quickly.

Tip 2

Place internal contextual links on your page, preferably above the fold i.e. on the top half of the page. When your visitors click on these internal links, they will be taken to other pages on your site, thereby reducing the bounce rate. Here is an example of an internal contextual link:

You might want to have a look at this plugin. It’s called LinkWithin, and it is a widget that appears below each post and links to related stories from your blog archive. This can keep your visitors moving through your site, and keep your bounce rate down.

Tip 3

Don’t overdo it with the ads. I know that when I land on a page and it is full of ads, it puts me off straight away, and I am very likely to think that the site owner is more interested in taking my money than he is in giving me good information.

OK, I know that you will probably have some ads on there in order to make some money, but just don’t overdo it. One thing I really hate is the gaudy, flashing, in-your-face ad. If I see one of those, I get out of there pretty fast! I think that a lot of people think the same way as I do regarding these types of ads, so I would advise you to think seriously before placing one of these on your page.

Tip 4

Make sure that your page loads up quickly. People are very impatient these days and expect everything to be delivered at breakneck speed. If they have to wait any length of time for your page to load, chances are that they will go elsewhere.

Once they click on your page, this is registered as a count and, if they then leave because it is taking too long to load, it will count as a bounce.

Your page could contain the most brilliant information, but if it takes an age to load, a lot of people won’t ever see it.

I read recently that visitors expect your web page to load in 2 seconds or less, and will probably leave if it takes anymore than 3 seconds. Scary, isn’t it?!

Here is a handy little plugin. It is called W3 Total Cache, and it should speed up the loading of your page.

Also, have a look at the Pingdom Tool. This gives your page a mark out of 100 for loading time.

Another useful piece of advice is to use the “save for web” option for any images that you use. This will reduce their size and their loading times.

Also try to avoid animated images, as they can often take an age to load (plus I find them annoying!)

Tip 5

Another thing to pay attention to is the actual theme and layout of your site.

Make sure your pages are pleasing to the eye.

For an information site, I tend to go for the more subtle colours, as opposed to the big bright reds, blues, yellows etc. Big bright colours such as these can be very glaring in large spaces and could make people click away quickly.

Of course, there will be some sites where big bright colours are called for. Horses for courses.

Tip 6

Adding, say, 2-4 relevant images to your page can help visitors stay and read more.

Remember, if you do add images, always use alt tags, as these tell the search engines a bit about the image, and gives you a chance to get some more keywords in (just don’t overdo it with the keywords!)

Tip 7

Adding a relevant video can also keep visitors on your page for longer, and hopefully encourage them to visit your other pages. just make sure it is relevant, and not too long!

Tip 8

Always try to keep your content up to date. There is nothing more off-putting than landing on a page and seeing information that is clearly out of date.