Bounce rate is a buzzword that gets its share of attention, but you may not know what it means for your business. Your site’s bounce rate isn’t a black-and-white proposition. While it’s generally something that you want to reduce, that isn’t the end of the story. Fortunately, there are six hot-as-heck tips that can help you handle your bounce rate – rather than letting it handle you.
A Bit about Bounce
Bounce refers to when a visitor lands on your page via Google (or another web browser) but doesn’t engage in any further interaction with your website. In other words, the visitor bounces, and as such, a high bounce rate obviously isn’t good for business. When it comes to SEO, however, the power of your bounce rate is less clear. Bounce is a matter of analytics, and it is not a function of Google. Google does, however, seem to incorporate some magical amalgam of engagement signals that – if we were privy to the information – would likely mirror bounce rates – in relation to SEO. For your own purposes, you want engaged and satisfied visitors, which is exactly why a low bounce rate should motivate you. Ultimately, your SEO is likely to go along for the ride. It’s important to remember that your bounce rate is just a number; it has no inherent meaning in terms of your site giving the people what they want, but it can be a useful tool (especially when paired with other metrics) that lets you know when you’re getting it right.
One: Speed Up That Page Speed
Page speed is about as basic as you can get, but it’s just as important as it ever was. Bounce rates and page speed correspond directly with one another – as your page speed decreases, so too will your bounce rate. When you give web adventurers an extra second or two, their minds tend to wander, and they find new places to explore. Sure, they might simply be in a hurry, but they’ve also come to expect a seamless ride, and if your site isn’t keeping up, it probably doesn’t inspire their confidence. Further, your page speed directly affects your SEO rank, and you shouldn’t be lagging in this arena.
Two: Don’t Limit Your Grasp of Visitor Intent
Visitors to your site have intentions, and when you manage to address a broader range of these intentions, you’re more likely to increase engagement. If, for example, you’re a law firm, your site’s intent is to land visitors who are looking for legal services, but if you can also entice those interested in specific cases and/or legal theory to hang out for a while, it can open up your site’s doors to a broader range of intent – and can decrease your bounce rate in the process.
Think Hard about the Competition
Take a good, hard look at your competition – the ones who are ranking highest on the search terms you want to rank on – and do a bit of comparing and contrasting. Analyze what it is that allows them to rank, and brainstorm ways you might be able to sharpen your competitive edge. By putting focused effort into competing with the big dogs, you improve your odds of joining the pack.
Answer Those Questions
Visitors to your site have questions – that’s why they’re there. When you provide in-depth answers that get to the core of what your readers are looking for, you deepen your connection with them and decrease the risk of them bouncing. In the process, don’t be afraid to link to related information on your site. This is one of the single best ways to open your site to a broader range of visitor intent while also answering questions up-tempo.
Three: Get Smart with Your CTA
Your call to action is your website’s main event, and your ultimate goal is to lead your guests here – to engage your services, to buy your products, or to do whatever it is that you do. One of the most important ways to smarten your CTA is to organically incorporate your ranking keywords within it. If your pages are ranking for a personal injury lawyer, for example, including a prompt to consult with an experienced personal injury lawyer in your CTA can help move the needle (up for engagement and down for that pesky bounce rate).
Four: Funnel Your Visitors into Engagement
A technique that journalists often employ is writing in an organizational style that is known as an inverted triangle, which means leading with a compelling hook – the meat of the matter – and guiding readers toward the details and background information involved from there. Don’t be afraid to grab your readers and pull them in.
Five: Keep Site Search Simple
If your visitors have to dig around on your site to find what they’re looking for, they’re more likely to return to Google for specifics, and even if they come right back to a different location on your site, it remains a bounce. When you keep your site so simple to navigate that it’s impossible to get lost, you help decrease both your bounce rate and your visitors’ frustration levels. While you’re at it, go ahead and remove those rage or dead clicks that entice your guests to click, but that leads nowhere. The names – rage clicks and dead clicks – say it all.
Six: Mix Your Medias
We all know that videos are great and that web surfers love them. While incorporating videos can increase your site’s desirability and your visitors’ level of engagement, accompanying them with transcripts and photos (to provide additional details) can enrich your guests’ experience and help limit bounce.
Talk Bounce with a Digital Marketing Professional Today
The dedicated digital marketing professionals at The Web Guys are committed to helping you reduce your bounce rates and – more importantly – to giving your visitors what they’re looking for. Get started by connecting with or calling us at (317) 805-4933 today.
