Businesses see more growth once they go online. It's becoming a fact. A BCG report found that small/medium businesses with a high internet involvement saw 22% more revenue growth than offline businesses. Can you afford to ignore something
that could increase your revenue by more than a fifth?
For business owners who are not already online, the whole
process can seem a little opaque; what exactly goes on behind the scenes? What
exactly is involved in maintaining and analysing a website?
In the last few blog articles, we have mentioned Google Analytics. This is a program we use to analyse a website’s success/impact; to see if the website is helping to further the goals of the business owner. Now, there are a lot of statistics involved in this process, and it can seem quite overwhelming all at once, so we’re going to dip a toe into web analytics today and talk a bit about Bounce Rate.
In the last few blog articles, we have mentioned Google Analytics. This is a program we use to analyse a website’s success/impact; to see if the website is helping to further the goals of the business owner. Now, there are a lot of statistics involved in this process, and it can seem quite overwhelming all at once, so we’re going to dip a toe into web analytics today and talk a bit about Bounce Rate.
What is Bounce Rate?
Picture a bouncing ball. It falls, hits the ground, and bounces back up again.
In this scenario, your website is the ground, and the ball is the
customer/visitor. When a visitor arrives
at your website (hits the ground), ideally we want them to stick and engage
with your content. However, around 50% of visitors to any website (on average)
just leave straight away from the first page they arrived at (they bounce).
This is obviously not a good thing!
You put time and money into your website, and the goal of that is not to have people bouncing away instead of staying to explore. Unfortunately, 50% is the average bounce rate because of a few factors, but we can probably narrow them down to just one;
Impatience
- People don’t want to wait for your page to load
- They don’t want to scroll and scroll looking for the information they need
- They don’t want to read poorly written content
- They don’t like the amount of pop-ups on your website
- And a multitude of other things!
So they bounce.
There are around 920 million webpages (as of
February 2014),
which means if your website can’t help someone, there are plenty more fish in the
sea for them!
So keep this in mind when thinking about your website; make it for your customer, not yourself or Google. Make it brilliantly easy to navigate,
and super clear where everything is.
What makes people
bounce away from your website?
- They were looking for something you don’t provide
- They were looking for something you provide…
This is where bounce rate gets hazy as a statistic. It is
not a hard and fast measure of success.
For example, it has just occurred to Tom that he does not know what pharaoh ants are.
 |
| "I don't think I know what pharaoh ants are....Better Google it!" |
So Tom
goes on Google and types in “what are pharaoh ants”. The first result is Graham Pest Control’s website, with an information page on pharaoh ants. Happy enough,
Tom clicks the link, reads the information provided, and his query is solved.
Tom can now get on with his productive day.
 |
| http://www.grahampestcontrol.com/pharaoh-ants |
In this scenario, Tom had no need to go searching for more
information on the website, because he got exactly what he needed. This is just
the way the internet is generally used, and it leads to informative pages racking up a high bounce rate. But the page helped Tom, so even though he
arrived and left on the same page (bounced), it was a successful exchange. With
informative pages, higher bounce rates are expected, simply owing to the sheer
number of people using the internet for one-off wonderings.
People are also relying more on the internet for finding contact details, which can lead to a higher bounce rate on non-informative pages. For example, if you're looking for the phone number for local pest controllers and land on the Graham Pest Control home page, then you can immediately leave again because the number is at the top!
People are also relying more on the internet for finding contact details, which can lead to a higher bounce rate on non-informative pages. For example, if you're looking for the phone number for local pest controllers and land on the Graham Pest Control home page, then you can immediately leave again because the number is at the top!
Visitors to your website who were looking for something you
don’t provide is a different kettle of fish. These people are leaving
disappointed, with their query unanswered. How has this happened?
Four things that might make people bounce:
- Misleading ads - Do you have adverts set up that promise something you don’t offer? If an ad pops up and tells me your website sells half-price laptops, then I'll be visiting your website for cheap laptops. If I arrive and find you only sell shoes, I will be annoyed and leave. This is not a way to win customers!
- Confusing Content - Is your website full of industry jargon? Is it poorly laid out? Are you using quality images alongside text? If it's not easy to read, people generally won't take the time to interpret it. Use images that make sense alongside your content (don't stick in a picture of a flower just to brighten things up!), and try to make it as straightforward as possible.
- Interruption - If the goal of your website is to sell products, make the whole process smooth. If you start jumping in and distracting the user from this goal, they may just leave out of frustration. For example, if you're buying a pair of socks online, do you buy from the website that lets you do it in 3 mouse clicks, or from the website with pop-up adverts that makes you take a survey before checkout? The fast and efficient one of course.
- Poor Quality Website - Visitors to your website are looking for signs that they can trust you. If your page is of sub-par quality, it will not make you look professional and trustworthy. Popular online companies do not have identical websites, but they are all of a certain standard, which reassures customers.
As you've gathered by now, there is no pre-set formula for
making people stick on your website; there are just a lot of things you can
adjust and improve. It's basically about crafting a website experience that
users enjoy.
Today’s article was just a brief introduction to bounce rate; there are more than 101 things you can do to try and improve it.
If you want more tips on improving your own bounce rate and getting customers to stop bouncing off into oblivion, then leave a comment below or send us an email!
Reduce the bounce,
with Vital Hike
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