Business Branding: How to Pounce Down Your Bounce Rate

Business Branding: How to Pounce Down Bounce Rates

Getting people to your website is one thing. Keeping them there is another. In the world of digital marketing, it’s common for people to connect with a website, glance around, and bolt – the ‘see and flee’ syndrome. Otherwise known as bouncing (measured by bounce rate), these quick exits typically are bad news for brand marketers. Visitors enter your store, but they don’t stick around. Hard to pique interest that way. Even harder to convert.

Bounce rates, of course, mean different things to different websites and brands. An alarming rate for one might be yawn material to another. It all depends on a variety of factors. In general, a bounce rate of 40% -55% is considered middle-of-the-road. Anything less deserves a trophy. On the other end of the spectrum, a bounce rate of between 55% -70% is climbing into above-average territory. Nothing to panic about. But still a clear call for improvement.

No matter what your current bounce rate, less generally means more … more browsing, more buying. It’s a natural correlation. And now for the good news. Brand marketers can minimize the dreaded see and flee syndrome. Stepping up delivery pace is one of the minimizers. Ever wait eons for a web page to load? Instant buyer repellent. People expect speedy deliveries calibrated in nanoseconds. Impatience multiplies when mobile devices are involved. When pages drag, visitors bolt. Thus, brand marketers should strive for the quick-loading page. Look at it this way: your content might be gold. But unseen, it’s as good as dirt.

Another important bounce-reduction step is page differentiation. Measuring time spent on specific web pages is much more revealing than keeping tabs on an entire site (although this is still an important consideration). For instance, visitors might be gluing themselves to your home page but leaping from your product overview page. Maybe the latter is vague, difficult to navigate, or slow-loading. But whatever the issue, the page is launching visitors and hiking your site’s overall bounce rate. By implementing remedial measures, brand marketers can improve both general and page-specific bounce rates.

If you have any questions or comments about reducing the bounce rate of your web pages, or about any other brand-related topic, feel free to send them our way.