Lisa Blackburn /
SEO & PPC Specialist
Your website might look great, but understanding how your existing and new customers navigate and engage with it is your key to getting those all-important leads, calls or sales.
When monitoring the success of your site and assessing the user behaviour, there are a number of metrics we take into consideration.
The impact each of these varies depending on the objective of your site too – for example, a much higher average number of pages viewed per session would be expected for an eCommerce website with a catalogue of products, opposed to a service-based site which drives interaction via calls or contact form submissions.
Unsure which metrics you should be monitoring? Let’s start with the bounce rate…
What is the bounce rate of a website?
The bounce rate is the % of your website visitors that leave your site on the same page they landed on. For example, if a potential customer lands on your homepage and then leaves your website without clicking through to read any other page, this will be considered a ‘bounce’.
A high bounce rate suggests that your website isn’t engaging visitors & potential customers. There are a number of factors that could encourage a bounce:
- The information on the page doesn’t provide them with what they’re looking for
- The page doesn’t load quickly enough
- Your website isn’t built for the device they’re using and it displays incorrectly
- The visitor is overwhelmed by a page with too much content or poor design
- The user journey is poor
OR
- In some cases, a bounce will be a result of your website visitor finding exactly what they need on your page and they either: a) have no need to read further (this is often the case with blog articles) or b) they have spotted your phone number and picked up the phone! (Note: Are you tracking calls from your website?)
What is considered a ‘good’ bounce rate?
For a service-based website, a positive bounce rate sits anywhere below 50%. This is an average and you’ll notice it varies a lot across traffic channels – traffic from social media, for example, will tend to have a bounce rate that is much higher, based on the general behavioural habits of people whilst browsing Facebook or Instagram.
Ecommerce websites do tend to see a reduced bounce rate, as potential customers will likely spend time browsing multiple product pages.
In today’s competitive online marketplace, it is important to be ahead of the game when it comes to SEO. Our specialist team of digital marketers can ensure that you are one step ahead of the competition – contact us today to get started.
