What Causes High Bounce Rates and How to Fix It

What is a Bounce Rate?

A Bounce rate is calculated when a user visits a single page on your website and does not interact with the page before leaving (or bouncing). More specifically, a website’s bounce rate measures how many visitors leave a page without interacting with the end goal in mind, such as buying a product, booking a service, filling out a form, or clicking on a link.  As an SEO Consultancy or Creative Agency, it’s important to understand bounce rates and how they impact your overall digital marketing strategy. For example, a bad bounce rate might indicate technical SEO or UX issues, such as your page load time being too slow or structured in a way which confuses users or does not address the intent of their search. In this guide, we’ll discuss:

• Why a Bounce Rate is Important
• What factors can affect your Bounce Rate 
• What a good Bounce rate is 
• Bounce Rate Benchmarking 
• How to fix your Bounce Rate

Why is it important?

A site’s bounce rate is important because it tells you how well people are or aren’t engaging with a web page.

What factors can affect bounce rate?

The Time it Takes for the Page to Load

Load speed is a key factor not only for bounce rates but also for SEO and UX. With the internet and Google now being mobile first your website must load fast. If your website does not load quickly enough it will likely result in an increased bounce rate as well as limited visibility in the SERP. Expect the amount of time that users are willing to wait for a page to load to continue dropping. Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to view how your website is performing and improve your website’s load speed on both desktop and mobile devices.

Too Many Adverts

No one likes being bombarded with Ads when they are trying to find something online. Google even reduces rankings for pages that have lots of advertising above the fold (the first visible part of a webpage when it loads) and makes it hard for the users to find the content that they are looking for.

CTAs or Call to Actions

The call to action is not just for hard selling. Internal linking is a way of guiding your users to other areas of your site. Related blog articles or services can also be very effective at showcasing additional content on your site. Ensuring that the call to action is relevant to the content on the page will increase your chances of visitors clicking, therefore reducing your bounce rate.

External Links

Have external links open in a new tab or a new window so that visitors can also remain on your website and consider whether external links will affect your ability to convert your traffic into customers if that is the goal.

Confusing Menu Structure

Nobody likes trying to navigate a website's menu if the UX and UI are bad. With technology now becoming more intuitive overly complicated menus can deter users whereas overly simplified menus may not give enough information to the user, there needs to be a balance. 

What is a good bounce rate?

In terms of good versus bad, a high bounce rate isn’t always a bad thing. A good bounce rate and a bad bounce rate are relative terms whose definitions can change according to different criteria, including subjective ones. For example, according to Google: “If the success of your site depends on users viewing more than one page, then, yes, a high bounce rate is bad ... On the other hand, if you have a single-page site like a blog, or offer other types of content for which single-page sessions are expected, then a high bounce rate is perfectly normal.” Another way to think about this is to think about a site’s structure. Let’s consider an eCommerce site. The homepage might have the highest bounce rate out of any page, for instance, because you want your visitors to stay on landing pages where they can make a purchase, like a product page.  So, what is a good bounce rate? A bounce rate of 56% to 70% is on the high side, although there could be a good reason for this, and 41% to 55% would be considered an average bounce rate. An optimal bounce rate would be in the 26% to 40% range.

Bounce Rate Benchmarks

Having a benchmark is so valuable when trying to understand where you stand against competitors in your industry. To find the latest information on the average bounce rate click here.

How do you fix a high bounce rate?

Be Realistic.

it’s important to set realistic expectations. Look at your historical data for how your website has performed in the past. Then, compare it to the average for your industry and platform. Let’s say your company is a B2B brand with an average bounce rate of 58%. The average bounce rate across industries is 47%, so your is high. However, the data also shows that bounce rates are much higher for B2B industries, at 75%. So, at 58%, your company is doing quite well.

Target the Right Users.

Picture yourself in a Supermarket You’re looking for a particular item and you go down an aisle. You look around and you can’t find it. So, what do you do?  Think of your website as an Supermarket. If your content doesn't interest the user they will leave and find another "supermarket." So, how do you make sure you’re attracting the right visitors?

• Create multiple landing pages with unique content and keywords for your different buyer personas.
• Maintain top rankings for branded terms.
• Write attractive, useful meta descriptions for search engine users.
• Improve targeting of online advertising campaigns.

Make UX a Priority.

In today's landscape you only have a few seconds to make a good impression and present a website that users enjoy being on. To do so, follow these steps:

• Make your text readable 
• Use well-organized, responsive layouts 
• Don’t let ads distract from your content

Make it Fast.

Page speed is one of the main reasons website visitors leave a website. Google reported in 2017 that when a page load time goes up to 10 seconds, the bounce rate on mobile goes up 123%. Would you wait over a minute for a page to load? I wouldn't and neither would most users.  Several factors can contribute to a slow website:

• Image size
• Self-loading multimedia content.
• Site server

.The ideal page load time is three seconds or less. Make sure you test your page speed regularly to ensure it meets this target.

Content is King.

Content can make or break your website visitor’s experience. Your content should be:

• Does your content make your visitors want to keep reading?
• Is your content easy to understand?
• Does it answer the question your website visitors are asking? 

Continuous Improvement.

Every change you make to your website can impact your bounce rate. With this in mind, you must monitor your website to assess traffic changes. If you notice a rise in your bounce rate and a drop in visitors, run A/B tests to determine what page elements could affect your traffic. Once you identify the issue(s), optimize your page. When it comes to bounce rate, there’s always room for improvement. Use optimization tools such as Semrush and HotJar to identify opportunities to lower your bounce.