Is a High Bounce Rate Killing Your Conversions?

When you’re busy analyzing metrics like unique visits, returning visits, and click-through-rates, it’s easy to overlook bounce rate. However, bounce rate plays a key role in a website’s conversions. If your site has a high bounce rate, it’s usually indicative of a more serious underlying problem that, if left unfixed, will continue to take away sales.

So, how do you know if a high bounce rate is killing your site’s conversions and what can you do to stop it?

What is Bounce Rate?

Bounce rate is a metric used to describe the percentage of visitors to a webpage or website who leave without accessing a second internal page in their session. Here’s an example: if one out of every three visitors to your homepage leave without clicking through to a second internal page on your site, your homepage would have a bounce rate of 33.3%. Keep in mind that a bounce may occur when a visitor clicks the back button in his or her browser, closes their web browser, times out, or clicks on an external link.

You can measure your website’s bounce rate by using an analytical tracking tool like Google Analytics. Once your site has been verified, Google will display both your site-wide and page-specific bounce rates.

Why You Should Aim for a Low Bounce Rate

If a large number of people who visit your site are leaving without accessing a second page, it usually means they are finding what they are looking for right away. There are times in which a high bounce rate is perfectly fine, such as the case involving PPC landing pages. If the purpose of your site is simply to funnel visitors to a different site, then a high bounce rate is fine. But if your objective is to convert visitors into paying customers directly on your site, you should strive for the lowest bounce rate possible.

How to Lower Your Site’s Bounce Rate

Now for the million-dollar question: how do I lower my site’s bounce rate? There are several different things that webmasters can do to lower their bounce rate, one of which is interlink their pages together. When creating content for your site, try to get into the habit of adding internal links. Doing so will create more opportunities for visitors to access a second page, and when this occurs, they won’t be counted as a bounce.

You can also lower your site’s bounce rate by setting external links to open in a new window/tab. As long as the visitor remains on your site, he or she can open new tabs without it triggering a bounce.

Lastly, make sure your site contains relevant content. When visitors land on a page, they should be presented with clear, relevant content. If the content doesn’t match the page title and description, a large portion of your visitors may leave.

What steps do you take to maintain a low bounce rate? Let us know in the comments section below!