Do you know how high your bounce rate is? Do you even know what bounce rate means?

With today’s competitive markets it is imperative that business owners understand their website analytics.

Marketing has changed dramatically over the past twenty years and most industries are stepping away from the traditional means of advertising (such as newspaper ads) and moving towards interactive or online marketing. A company’s website, one of their most important sales tools, needs to grab potential client’s attention. More importantly, it needs to hold their attention. This is why your bounce rate is so important.

So what exactly is a bounce rate? A website’s bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that view the site and immediately leave or “bounce off” the site instead of viewing more pages. A bounce rate is measured by two variables: The percentage of website visitors who view just one page of your site and the percentage of visitors who stay on your site for a very short amount of time.

On average, a bounce rate is typically around 40%. A good bounce rate should be at 30% or below. If your current bounce rate is higher than 40% don’t stress, there are methods you can put in place to help bring this number down. Here is a list of strategies that can help you lower your bounce rate:

Invest in a Professionally Designed Website

One of the biggest reasons why people bounce off of a site is due to bad design and the presentation of the wrong message. Presentation is important. A site that is designed with unstructured lines, conflicting colors, amateur font sizes and/or images will cause the end user to quickly leave your site.

While many companies are looking to cut their costs in today’s economy, choosing a web designer that is competing with price will ultimately end up costing more in the long-run. Usually with lower costs comes less experience which can create longer processes and a poorly designed website. Your focus should be on the value and the ROI. Your web designer should be able to not only create an aesthetically pleasing site, but they also need to act as your marketing consultant and be well versed in optimizing your site. If your web designer is not asking you questions about who your target market is, what your vision, mission and values are and what you expect to gain from your site, you need to run… and fast!

Create Easy Navigation

We are a time sensitive, need-to-know-now society. Think about when you are searching for something on-line. You need to find your answer quick. If a website does not offer easy navigation, the person viewing it does not want to waste his or her time trying to find the right page, and trust me, they won’t. A website should be aesthetically pleasing and lead the end user throughout the site. Hire a web designer that not only has the understanding of design elements and how it affects the end user but that also has an understanding of end user web surfing habits. The end user should be able to find what they are looking for in a few clicks, if not they will click onto another site. To get an idea of a few sites with great navigation visit our portfolio section.

Write Great Copy

We always preach that content is king. When you’ve built a great website that is easy to follow, and visually pleasing, the next step is to fill those pages with relevant content. Not only will good copy help with your SEO, but when a potential client finds what they are looking for, it is almost guaranteed that they will want to dig deeper into the information that you provided on your site.

Use Great Keywords

You also need to focus on choosing the right keywords. Your bounce rate could have negative effects with your placement on search engines. One of the factors Google analyzes on your site is not only how many people are viewing your site but also how long they are staying on your site and how many pages they are clicking through. As the “Google-bots” index your site, they will look to see if the information on the pages relates to the content and keywords that are being used. For example, if you own a travel agency and your keywords have to do with the weather conditions of tropical areas, that might cause you to have a higher bounce rate. If someone wants to know how hot it is in the Caribbean and they are brought to a page that shows hotel prices in the Caribbean, they may quickly leave your site. Once Google realizes this, down your sites rankings go.

Though there are many strategies to lower your bounce rate. Starting with these strategies, however, is a great way to not only a great way to keep people on your site, but also increase your chances for better search engine rankings. This results in the opportunity for more people to see your website.

For more information, contact us at 973-998-5742 or visit us online at www.KrausMarketing.com.