Knowing and understanding the bounce rate at your website is critical to the success of your SEO marketing as well as your business. Your bounce rate is that percentage of visitors who land at your site but then click out of it before going any deeper. This is the death knell of your business. Your site must engage visitors enough to make those conversions. Otherwise, why bother being in business in the first place? There are some strategies you can employ, however, that will keep your bounce rate to a minimum.
- Keep it simple, as always. Short paragraphs, plenty of calls to action and a simple layout is best. Make it easy for them to navigate to where you want them to go and make it easy for them to buy.
- Use lists and numbers and break everything down into small chunks. Lots to read will bounce most visitors. Video is critical if you can keep it under four minutes. Any longer and, sadly, their attention span will be shot and they will bounce.
- Scattered images work well also. But, remember that everything at your website is designed to lead visitors to a conversion. Make sure they can navigate easily. Don’t hide your search box or your navigation buttons.
- Any of your internal links must open in a separate window. You don’t want them leaving your site for any reason. Sure, the links help your SEO efforts immensely but you don’t want them to leave. You want them to stay and buy.
- Go easy on the ads. Sure, there are programs where you can make some money on an affiliate program but don’t bog down your site’s speed and don’t obscure the site with so many ads that people get dizzy and leave. Too many ads also contributes to your company losing credibility and being taken seriously.
- Ditch the autoplay. If you have a video, ad or not, blasting away as soon as someone lands, they are bouncing. Turn it off and let the visitor decide. Update your site at least on a weekly basis and you must be optimized for mobile. Your SEO, and your business will continue to suffer if you are not already optimized to be seen on mobile devices. It remains astounding how many small businesses are still not playing well on mobile.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
SearchPro Systems
2024