High Bounce Rate? 9 Common Things to Beat for a Big Win

High Bounce Rate?  Have you figured out why? 9 common reasons why that will help your web design strategy

High bounce rate websites are not necessarily boring.  But a high bounce rate can be very worrisome.

First, let’s define bounce rate. Your site’s bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave your website (called a “bounce”) when they return to the search results or referring website after viewing just one page.  And in fact, the SEO experts at Rocketfuel claim that’s not quite accurate.  That puts them somewhat at odds with Google, but is that even a bad thing?

In a wide sampling taken by Rocketfuel, they found the average bounce rate varied wildly between 26 and 70 percent.  That’s pretty wild!

So what does that mean?

The key thing that you need to know about the bounce rate is it’s the percentage of people visiting your site who probably didn’t find what they were looking for.

That, in itself, isn’t a terrible thing, unless the number gets too high, like maybe above high average.  In other words, above 70 percent.

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What that might mean is that people are coming to your site for the wrong reasons.  Something about your traffic driving strategy is bringing people to your site with the wrong keywords.  If your site sells vacations to the Mexican Riviera and they find you searching free classified ads for snow tires, you might want to look at your strategies.  Then again, if I need snow tires and find a site offering sunny, warm beaches, I might forget about the snow tires!  But I digress…

This does lead to another consideration:  If your bounce rate is too low, something’s probably not working, either.  If your bounce rate is below 20 percent or above 75 percent, something is almost certainly broken.

Common reasons for a high bounce rate are things like:

1. Page not loading or error page
2. Search terms not matching content
3. Taking too long to load
4. Bad content  – different from not matching content.  The content, itself, is not providing the information visitors are looking for.  This could mean the information on the subject is far too shallow
5. Poor design.  Clashing colors, too many items, difficult navigation, etc.
6. Not mobile friendly.  A huge segment of all web traffic is now mobile
7. Page errors that prevent the page from loading correctly
8. Simple task – this isn’t a bad thing.  It might be a page with a simple form to fill out
9. It is an affiliate page or landing page that is converting successfully.  In other words, its entire purpose is to direct traffic to another site or page.

Common reasons for an unusually low bounce rate are things such as:

1. Google Analytics code inserted twice.  This is perhaps the most common cause of a suspiciously low bounce rate.  In WordPress sites, the analytics code might have been inserted both in the template and in an SEO plugin. Another common error is when the code is inserted in both the header and the footer.
2. Some other technical error.  For some reason, the site’s analytics are not reporting correctly.  This might require a call to the IT department or support line.

Neil Patel, co-founder of NP Digital,

has put together an excellent infographic showing typical bounce rates by industry.  You can see it in its entirety at his site.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Neil is a top web influencer. Forbes lists him as a top 10 marketer, while Entrepreneur Magazine credits him with creating one of the 100 most brilliant companies. President Obama recognized Neil as a top 100 entrepreneur under 30. Similarly, the UN listed him as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35. He is a New York Times bestselling author. Follow the link and bookmark his site!  

It’s time to bring your high bounce rate back down to earth.

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