Reviewing website performance statistics is an essential part of SEO, so bounce rate is a metric you should be aware of. Your SEO company be able to explain what an optimised bounce rate looks like for your business and your industry. What can you do if your bounce rate is too high, though?
There are lots of potential causes for a high bounce rate on your website, including slow page load speeds or your website reporting errors to visitors. That said, the issue could be related to the content on your website. If the content doesn’t deliver for the visitor, they will leave.
It’s important to mention at this point that a high bounce rate isn’t always a bad thing. However, in most businesses, the goal is to get website visitors to view more than one page whether that is to view a product, complete a lead generation form, make a purchase, etc. Therefore, a high bounce rate could be an indication your website is not achieving maximum results. With integrated marketing strategies, you can get over these issues.
So, where should you start? Here are the main content problems that can inflate bounce rate.
Visitors Getting Content on the Page They Didn’t Expect
This particularly applies to landing pages for ads. If the landing page doesn’t match the user’s search, don’t expect visitors to stay for very long. The content on your website’s pages should match visitor expectations.
Read more: 8 WordPress Plugins You Need to Create Killer Content
Your Website Focuses Too Much on Your Business
This one can be challenging for some business owners, but it remains true that visitors to your website care much more about the problem they want to solve than about your business, products, or services. Therefore, your website’s content should focus on the visitor, not on your business.
You Have Pages Where the Content is Hard to Find
The content on your pages should be easy to skim read. If it is not, it will be hard for users to find what they are looking for. As a result, they could give up and leave.
Making your content easy to read includes using lists, short paragraphs, subheadings, and straightforward language.
Your Pages Have Poorly Written Content
Poorly written content is hard to read and will result in users leaving your site. Examples of poorly written content include badly structured sentences, large blocks of text and long paragraphs, bad spelling, and bad grammar.
No Calls to Action
You could have a situation where a visitor views a page on your website, gets the information they need, and leaves again. They are happy but they still bounce and it’s simply because you didn’t explain to them what you would like them to do next, i.e. you don’t have calls to action.
Read more: How to Create a Landing Page That Converts – 10 Critical Elements
You Don’t Offer an Appealing Value Proposition
This one is an issue with your offer to visitors rather than with the actual content on your website. If visitors don’t find your offer appealing, they will leave. Reviewing your offer is the solution in this situation.
Visitors Got What They Needed
Finally, people might be leaving your website because your site has done a good job. A good example is a news website where someone visits to read an article, does that, and then leaves again. In these situations, the bounce is not necessarily a bad thing.
For your business, a potential positive outcome from a website bounce could be introducing your brand to the visitor, for example, or a visitor that goes on to follow you on social media.
Reviewing and Updating the Content on Your Website
You and your SEO company in Auckland should constantly work to optimise the content on your website. If one of your goals is to reduce your bounce rate, the above points are an excellent starting point. By making any necessary changes, you will see your bounce rate fall.
