Higher Bounce Rate? 9 Reasons Why It Misguides Your ROI Efforts

“There is only one boss. The Customer” said Sam Walton, the popular American businessman and entrepreneur. The saying holds absolutely true as it is the quality of customer experience that helps the business set a cutting edge among its competitors. Probably that’s why ‘customer engagement’ is the prime goal of 88% of companies in the digital generation. But what if your customers dash your hopes by bouncing back from halfway?

The term ‘bounce’ in Google Analytics refers to the single-page session where users visit the landing page but exit without triggering the next request to the Analytic server. Concerning this, ‘bounce rate’ is defined as the ratio of a number of single-page sessions to the number of total sessions on the website. For instance, if you have a substantial number of visits to your blog but not a single visitor clicks on CTA (Call to action), the case may be that visitors have bounced back from the page without converting the visit into qualified sales leads.

Bounce rate is one of the commonly used metrics in digital analytics and has a strong correlation with ROI (Rate Of Investment). Investing a great deal of money in a campaign that has a good number of visits but yields no sale is worthless and raises the alarm for taking relevant action. Thus, to accomplish the goal of higher ROI in digital marketing, here we will understand the concept of ‘bounce rate’ in detail.

Is Bounce Rate Always Bad?

As per google, the Bounce rate is the percentage of sessions resulting in bouncing back of visitors. In simple words, it is the percentage of the audience who reads or visits the website but does not respond to Call to Action.

Bounce Rate = Single Page Visits / Total Visits

Bounce rate is one of the vital metrics that helps the business to identify the ineffectiveness of website content in attracting visitors. It relies on plentiful factors, some of which include:

• Source of traffic
• Type of page visitors are landing on
• Type of traffic
• Design and structure of the website
• Speed of usability

Fact: There is a specific rule of thumb to determine the degree of bounce rate affecting ROI. According to which, a bounce rate lying in the range of 26% to 40% is good, 41% to 55% is average, 56% to 70% is a cause of concern, and one with above 70% is quite bad for websites dealing in sales.

A high bounce rate is definitely an alarming sign for the website that their content isn’t of high-quality and lacking the aspects essential to stand unique at search engines. This holds true for the website which aims to have substantial views on more than one page and expects extraordinary sales. Nevertheless, in the case of blogs, news sites, events, and websites with a single page, a high bounce rate is not bad as it indicates that the audience has found what it is looking for.

However, since most of the websites or businesses associate with sales and aim to convert visitors into qualified sales leads for higher ROI, a high bounce rate is disturbing and needs in-depth monitoring to be improved with relevant action.

9 Reasons Why Bounce Rate Misguides ROI Efforts

From the aforesaid facts, it is transparent that a high bounce rate can act as a stumbling block in the success of the business. There are plentiful reasons that visitors visit your site but leave without diving into the next page or clicking on CTA, thus making your ROI efforts go in vain. The top 9 reasons are:

• Slow Page Loading Speed

An ideal website should take one to two seconds to load. According to one of the surveys, 40% end up abandoning the site when it takes more than 3-4 seconds to load. In fact, even a one-second delay can result in an increase in bounce rate probability and a drop in conversion. BBC, one of the remarkable public service broadcasters, proposes that it itself loses additional 10% users for every second it gets delayed to load.

Some of the factors that slug the speed of your page include using the cheapest hosting, using too many or oversized images, adding custom fonts, and adding bounteous Javascript effects. All these things will result in your website working on its last legs, and unfortunately, you will lose a significant amount of visitors.

• Too Many Popups And Disruptive Advertising

No doubt, display advertising often helps the business to expand but, too many popups or intrusive advertising on the landing page may raise anyone’s hackles. Many a time, pop ups on your page include non-friendly language that visitors don’t find suitable and leave the site in one go. This not only annoys the individual but ends up fading the value of content and reputation of the website in the eyes of the audience. So remember – no extra pop ups but only the point details to put the page on a pedestal.

• Deceptive Title Tag Or Meta Description

Meta description and title tag are the synopsis of your content that let the visitor know what it is about. Even though these don’t have a direct impact on the ranking of the page but having a good meta description can result in desired CTR. On other hand, an inappropriately summarized meta description and title tag can make the readers have a wrong idea of the page, as a result of which they may bounce back if they didn’t find any relevance.

• Low Quality Or Ordinary Content

In the words of Michael Brenner, CEO of Marketing Insider Group, ‘Content marketing is the gap between what brands produce and what customers actually want’. It is the effectiveness and better optimization of content that helps your site ranks top on search engines and boost customer engagement as well. However, having an ordinary, cliched, or boring content that does not address the needs of customers head towards more chances of visitors bouncing back from the landing page. Throwing the light on the second possibility when your content is great but not optimized according to Google algorithms, it makes difficult for the audience to find your page or site.

• Absence Of Call To Action

‘Shop’, ‘Buy’, ‘Sign up’, ‘Try now’, ‘Subscribe’, ‘Start’, all such signposts on the web page takes the users to the next step without letting them wonder and wander. On finding that most visitors read CTA along with reading the headline, it would not be strenuous to state its importance in boosting ROI.

Call-to-action is a little box of knowledge that guides the visitor when they scratch their head thinking – what’s next and plays a crucial role in retaining the customer on a site. In case your page lacks a proper CTA, visitors may find themselves struggling for the next step, that ultimately results in their bouncing back from the page. Thus, add it now!

• Targeting Wrong Traffic

Imagine dealing with athletic shoes for men, but instead of targeting athletes and sports figures, your marketing aspects include men belonging to all categories! Now, this will definitely drive plentiful traffic but not the right traffic that might have surely resulted in conversion. Even Hubspot has revealed that audience targeting is one of the best ways to let the advertisers drive more demand. Therefore, not targeting the right audience mounts the major reason that makes visitors lose their interest in your page soon, which automatically surges the bounce rate.

• Asking A Horde Of Information To Visitors

Landing page of the website is a hub of information for visitors where they will find and develop interest for you. However, in lieu of focusing on this, if the page is filled with too many queries asking the customers about their personal details, it may drive them up the wall. Besides, in instances where your landing pages demand information like their credit number and family details, there is a possibility that users might consider you a scam and leave the site.

• Landing Page Is Not Mobile Friendly

As babbled by Google itself, 48% of mobile users who visit the page which is not mobile-friendly thinks that business did not care about its establishment. In other words, if your website does not have a mobile-friendly structure, you will end up losing a great number of visitors. Not only this, the landing page when not optimized for mobile does not load faster, as a result of which visitors abandon the site instead of waiting.

• Poor Designing Of Landing Page

Along with content, what entices the visitors to stay for longer and search for your business is the impressive design of your landing page. Having a website with poor layout, less visuals, improper graphics, and ordinary design will not blow anybody’s away. Not that the attractive layout of the page leads to sure shot conversion, but the opposite will undoubtedly compel visitors to leave your site.

Buck Up To Bring Down Bounce Rate

A high bounce rate is indeed a matter of concern in achieving considerable ROI, still there are several ways, harnessing which can lessen challenges. It is suggested to consider all the landing page etiquettes to avoid the instance of visitors leaving your site without clicking on CTA. Besides, determining the aforesaid loopholes on your site, if any, will help you prepare an appropriate action strategy to fix the issue.

In case, you are still in a jumble, that why bounce rate on your site is high, we at WebSpero Solution can help you identify and fix the potential issues by conducting the website audit. Contact now to make people stay at your page and you at the top.

Don’t let your fella bounce!