Tags: call to action, reduce bounce rate, visual site maps, wordpress related posts
When you start to follow your website analytics you start to notice a percent of people identified as Bounce Rate. Bounce rate (sometimes confused with exit rate) is a term used in web site traffic analysis. It essentially represents the percentage of initial visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site.
I recently had the task of lowering bounce rate on a few of our clients websites. And it made me want to learn more about it. I did some research and I wanted to discuss with the world how bounce rate works and a few ways that worked really well for our bounce rate.
Let’s start with continuing education. There is no such thing as a single identified bounce rate. Yes you may see it on your analytics labeled right before your eyes but it has a deeper meaning. There are 4 different types of bounce rate.
The first is called Low-value referrers which are visitors like those say, visiting from Digg.com, or StumbleUpon.com. These people are probably not in your target audience. You should expect most of them to leave immediately, once they’ve satisfied their idle curiosity. Consider any value derived from sites like those as pure gravy; don’t worry if this traffic source has a sky-high bounce rate.
The second type of bounce rate is Direct links from other websites. These links are the equivalent of a vague recommendation: “You might want to check out this site.” People who click such links haven’t expressed a direct intent to engage with your topic to the same degree as someone who actively enters a search engine query. These visitors do have some degree of interest, however, a high bounce rate at this point is a symptom of a user experience problem.
The third type of bounce rate is Search engine traffic, whether from organic SEO or paid links. By clicking your link, these users have actively indicated an acute interest in the topic and should engage intensely with your content. If they leave immediately, it’s a sign that something is seriously wrong with your landing pages. These issues can be 404 errors, navigation issues, slow load time, etc.
The final type of bounce rate is Loyal users. These are the people that want your product or service and make the effort to browse through your website and who return repeatedly to your site. On the one hand, you’d expect the highest engagement from your biggest fans. On the other hand, this engagement might not show up on every visit if they visit often. As long as people keep coming back, there’s nothing wrong with having them sometimes leave after a page view or two.
There is another type of bounce rate but it can be prevented by making sure your IP Address is not being recorded on your analytics. I can’t say how many times I thought my bounce rate was high but it was just me looking at the front page of my website time and time again. Google Analytics provides the option to remove your IP Address from their settings and if you don’t know your IP Address a great website to get it is http://whatismyipaddress.com.
So now that you understand the different types of bounce rates there are some ways to reduce it using a couple methods I outlined below. These method will work with all websites on any platform.
There are several ways to accomplish this even on your static websites. If you have WordPress there are a few different plug-ins. the one I use is Related Posts. It displays 5-10 related links using tags. If you have a static website pick a few site links you have related and post them at the bottom of your content. This makes it easy for visitors to view more content throughout your website.
Sometimes your website design just isn’t enough to capture your audience. Build more call to action on your website with a box for newsletter sign-ups or even a poll. Drive people throughout your website and make it easy to navigate. Page Peel Banners (PPB) are a great way to reduce the bounce rate. Here is a Free PPB for WordPress. Here is a demo of a PPB, look into the right top corner of the website.
Most visitors love a beautiful design with easy navigation so why not make your sitemaps the same way using visual sitemaps. I recently posted here about SlickMap CSS which is a really neat interactive way to display your sitemaps.
I hope by now you know more about bounce rate and how a few tweaks and adjustments to your website can significantly reduce it. If anyone has any other methods of reducing bounce rate please feel free to share in the comments. Thanks.
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3 Responses to Ways to reduce Bounce Rate on your Website
DR. WHAW? – February 11, 2010 « One True Sentence
February 12th, 2010 at 12:08 am
[...] Ways to Reduce the Bounce Rate on Your Website (Benzing Technologies) Let’s end on a practical note. Many of you reading this may not know what your bounce rate is, much less how to measure it or reduce it. This article has some practical tips to do just that. [...]
website navigation design | WEBSITE
February 12th, 2010 at 3:18 am
[...] Ways to reduce Bounce Rate on your Website | Website Design … [...]
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March 25th, 2010 at 10:25 am
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