“Bounce rate,” by definition, refers to the number of website visitors coming to your page and leaving quickly after a single page view. Unlike most other website metrics, you want this percentage to be very low because people visiting your site and viewing multiple pages means more time invested in your brand and spent thinking about your products or services rather than that of a competitor!

When you have a low bounce rate, that means all your working parts are functioning efficiently: your SEO keywords are helping audiences find the information they’re seeking, your web design is keeping people engaged, and your content is (hopefully) bringing prospects closer to a sale.

According to Selz.com, 65 percent of buyers spend more than 16 minutes comparison shopping before making a purchase and 36 percent of consumers spend more than 30 minutes. So it makes sense that you want to keep audiences with you for more than a few seconds.

What’s A Good Bounce Rate?

According to research conducted by GoRocketFuel.com…

• The lowest bounce rates are between 25 and 30 percent.*
• An excellent bounce rate ranges from 26 to 40 percent.
• An average bounce rate ranges from 41 to 55 percent.
• A slightly high bounce rate ranges from 56 to 70 percent.
• An alarmingly high bounce rate is anything over 70 percent.
• Mobile bounce rates are typically 10 to 20 percent higher than desktop.

*If your bounce rate is lower than 20 percent, you may have a problem with your Analytics setup!

Why Is Traffic Leaving Your Site?

There are a myriad of reasons for a bounce rate to be extremely high. Most of the time, you can be rest assured there is a fundamental design flaw such as:

• Slow-loading pages
• Confusing layout and navigation
• Content that doesn’t align with SEO efforts
• Too many or too few calls-to-action
• Low quality content / not enough content
• Pages that are not optimized for mobile

Image Source: HappyMarketer.com

What Can You Do To Fix A High Bounce Rate?

Here are five fixes we’ve used to dramatically drop down bounce rates for our clients:

Optimize for mobile: As we learned from “Mobilegeddon,” mobile websites are not just a fad. They’re absolutely essential! You can either do a whole site redesign or create a stand-alone mobile site that parallels your existing page (which is what we typically recommend unless your current site is really old and in need of an overhaul already). Also, check out this guide from Google.

Improve site content: Which pages are causing the highest bounce rates? How can you cover the topic more efficiently or create more value for people perusing these pages? Is your content well-written and edited for grammar? Is the copy broken up into easy-to-scan paragraphs, headlines and bullet lists? Also make sure the keywords people are using to find your page are appropriate and match the content of your page.

Add or fix your calls to action: Each page on your site should answer the question, “What next?” If your readers learn a lot from what they’ve read and find they are one step closer to a purchase, you want to be sure you’re one step ahead. Make it easy for readers to buy by linking to the appropriate page. Suggest related or add-on products on your product pages. Recommend related posts at the end of each blog entry. Let people click a link to contact you directly for more information.

Omit clutter: Auto-playing videos, pop-up notifications and an overabundance of advertising can be a major turnoff for visitors. Consider shrinking the size or presence of your ads slightly and using exit-intent popup ads instead.

Optimize page load time: People won’t wait more than 2-3 seconds for a page to load. You can fix issues by using a plugin like the EWWW Image Optimizer to fix image size issues or the W3 Total Cache plugin to set up browser caching. Here are five other WP plugins that can speed up your site. For $0-200/month, you can also try the CloudFlare website optimizer, which the pros highly recommend or you can contact a company like Mod Girl Marketing to resolve any issues.