One of the best ways to improve your website’s conversion performance and ensure that every page is holding the attention of users and compelling them to learn more, engage with you, or complete a purchase, is to first acknowledge what might be causing them to leave your site.

Bounce rate is a stat which tells you how many users arrive on your site, only to leave again within a short period of time, after viewing only one webpage. When you know how high your bounce rate is you can start to analyse the user experience and determine what could be causing users to lose interest so quickly - whether it’s the logistics around user experience, or an inconsistency in messaging.

As part of this blog post, we are looking at the importance of understanding your bounce rate alongside tips on improving the user experience and customer journey to increase sales.

But first, what is the bounce rate and how is it analysed?

A guide to bounce rates for business owners

The bounce rate of a website analyses how many users click onto a site, only to leave again without continuing their journey to any other webpages.

The aim of the bounce rate is to see how many users click onto your site as a reaction to an email or ad but leave again without engaging further in what you have to offer. This information can help you to uncover issues with the user experience of your site, gaps in your content, and inconsistencies in your messaging - with a high bounce rate caused by any of these factors or a combination of all of them.

What is considered a good bounce rate?

To ensure a good bounce rate, you need to be guiding users onto a web page which loads quickly, offers a stable and accessible design, and is packed with sufficient information to spark their interest and encourage further action.

A 'good' bounce rate is anything around 40% or under, which means that less than half of website visitors are closing the webpage or clicking away without at least exploring your site a little.

Typically, a high bounce rate is a sign that you are guiding the wrong users onto your site, that your site is not loading quick enough, or that the page they are landing on does not continue the experience they were hoping for. For example, if you entice users to click by promoting access to a new product but then take them onto a landing page targeted at something different, the chances of them staying on your site are low - and the chance of a bounce is high.

Why is it important to know what your bounce rate is?

The more you know about the experience users receive from your website, the better your chance of creating an experience that bolsters conversion. When you know what your bounce rate is and work to identify what’s causing it, you can take steps to improve all aspects of the user journey and experience.

And if there’s one thing that experience tells us, it’s that by understanding bounce rate you can also identify the steps that are likely to enhance the user journey and translate to higher conversion as a result of a better and more seamless website experience.

With all that in mind, what are the steps that you can take to improve your bounce rate?

Tips on improving your website bounce rate

The first and most important thing you need to do to improve your bounce rate, is something that any businesses in tune with SEO should and will hopefully already be doing. Page load speeds form an integral part of the user experience, yet this area is often overlooked. The speed at which a page loads will make or break a user experience, so much so that if the page takes too long to load you will lose their interest completely - not to mention, Google will rank you way down the list of potential website solutions.

In order to improve your bounce rate, take steps to improve page load speed by compressing certain pages and making image and video files smaller.

Another way to improve your bounce rate is to ensure your website and landing pages cater to all devices, so that users who arrive from any marketing channel or outlet will receive a consistent experience.

While we’re on consistency, it’s also important to ensure that any clickable button on your social, email, or digital marketing campaigns takes you through to the right landing page - building on and expanding their existing journey, rather than taking them somewhere totally new.

Finally, make content easy to read and accessible - with plenty of white space and concise copy which does its intended job but without overloading the user with information.