If there’s one thing we know from being an inbound marketing agency, it’s this – if your business is suffering from a high bounce rate, then it’s inevitably suffering from a low conversion rate, which, in turn, means low sales.
But let’s slow down a second…
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A website bounce rate is a Google Analytics metric that refers to the percentage of people who land on a single page on your site and then leave again without browsing further. They don’t check out another page, they don’t click on anything, they don’t engage with your chatbot – they just boing off somewhere else.
A high bounce rate can be detrimental to your business as it indicates that visitors are leaving your landing page, e-commerce site, or website without interacting with it. In order to address this issue and improve the website's bounce rate, you can implement strategies such as improving the user experience, optimising the loading speed, and creating engaging content.
Additionally, improving your landing pages can also help to increase conversion rates, as they are the first impression visitors have of your website. By optimizing your landing pages, you can create a better user experience and increase the likelihood that visitors will stay on your site and explore your products, blog posts, downloads, and checkout pages.
(Image source: blog.kissmetrics.com)
If you’re encountering higher bounce rate, there are a number of things that could be causing it. For starters, your website may simply be confusing – users may not be able to locate your navigation menus, and don’t want to waste time trying. Another reason may be that your content is irrelevant to visitors – in which case you need to ask yourself if you’re attracting the right visitors to your website in the first place. If your site is slow to load, then this again may be causing visitors to bounce. Your CTAs may not be strong enough, your blog titles not enticing enough, or your layout not clear enough.
Whatever the reason is, it’s imperative you get to the bottom of it, for a high bounce rate is rarely good for business – and that’s where an inbound marketing agency will help.
(Image source: blog.kissmetrics.com)
A high bounce rate indicates that visitors are quickly leaving your website without interacting with the sales page, site content, or engaging with as few clicks as possible. This can suggest that the wrong audience is being targeted through search engines. Improving conversion rate optimization can help increase engagement and reduce bounce rate. Utilizing tools like Google Analytics can provide valuable insights into user behavior and help identify areas for optimizing the sales page, site content, and minimizing the number of clicks required.
So, who are the right people?
Potential buyers. That’s the short answer, however, to help you figure out exactly who your potential buyers are – where they work, where they hang out online, what their interests are, what sort job role they perform – your inbound marketing agency will help you create buyer personas.
A buyer persona is simply a semi-fictionalised representation of your ideal customer. It’s essentially a detailed document that describes a realistic profile of the types of people that your business is targeting.
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The better and more accurate your buyer personas, the better you are able to target them with tailored content that will match their specific interests and concerns.
Once you've got buyer personas nailed, the next step is to attract these people to your site with great content that will keep them hooked and eager to learn more, thereby enhancing both your website's conversion rate and value proposition.
Your inbound marketing agency will develop this content marketing strategy in direct line with your targeted personas.
A good strategy will encompass many different forms of content – blogs, of course, but also videos, infographics, webinars, case studies, eBooks, podcasts, and other high-value material. The important thing, however, is that the content provided is engaging. Indeed, high engagement is practically synonymous with a low bounce rate.
What makes for engaging content? Well, it must be informative, entertaining, and useful all at once. If you want your targeted personas to hang around and check out your product pages, then you need to win them over with superlative content from the outset. You need to convince them that your company is worthy of their lasting attention, that you have the goods, the knowledge, and the answers to their pain-points. And this must be delivered in every single piece of content that you publish, for only this way will your visitors click around to find out more.
A website's high bounce rate can still occur, even if the right people with the right content are attracted, due to frustrating user experience. Incorporating site search functionality and ensuring positive user experience, especially on mobile devices, can help reduce bounce rate.
What’s required is a visually appealing site that delivers a streamlined and seamless experience for each and every visitor that arrives at your door – and that means inbound marketing website design.
Having a clear and user-friendly website navigation not only helps visitors easily navigate your website, but it can also improve your search rankings, attract potential customers, and ultimately increase your conversion rate. It is important to place your navigation at the top of each page, where users expect it to be, as visitors who struggle to find what they are looking for are likely to leave your website without taking any action.
Positioning is key – but so too is the copy. When visitors click on a link, they should have a good idea of what is going to appear on the page that they are navigating to. And with this in mind, it’s also important that you build in an intuitive internal linking structure with each piece of content that you publish – one that effortlessly guides users from piece of content to another with thoughtful anchor text.
(Image source: blog.hubspot.com)
But one of the most crucial things when it comes to great inbound marketing website design is your CTAs.
Adding relevant and compelling calls-to-action on each page you publish will help you guide visitors towards the most natural next step that you want them to take. If they’ve arrived at a blog post, for instance, you may wish them to download a related eBook – so make sure that CTA is clear and enticing.
The important thing to remember when trying to lower a high bounce rate is to provide a reason for site visitors to stay on the same page or visit another relevant page on your site. To do this, strategically place relevant keywords and CTAs that match the visitor's intent and keep them to a minimum to avoid overwhelming them. This way, you can improve the user experience and increase the chances of conversion without driving visitors away in search of something else.
Lowering a high bounce rate is all about strategy. Your inbound marketing agency will begin at the beginning with this, first trying to figure out why so many people are bouncing, and then begin to implement a number of tactics to stop it from happening. By attracting the right users with the right content, and then giving them a seamless experience with a brilliant, engaging and intuitive website design, your inbound marketing agency can start lowering your high bounce rate in no time, and from there begin to work on upping those conversions and sales, too.
If you need help with a high bounce rate, get in touch with our inbound marketing agency here at Incisive Edge today.