What are you missing in your bounce rate?
If you've spent any time in Google Analytics, you're almost certain to have seen the "Bounce Rate" metric that appears alongside each page of your website.
If you're unfamiliar with what bounce rate is or how to apply it, you're not alone. It's one of the most misunderstood metrics in search engine optimization.
What is the bounce rate?
Bounce rate is an exit metric that indicates how frequently a visitor leaves your page after seeing it. In essence, it determines the degree to which your content is engaging.
If your website is entertaining and addresses a reader's demand, it will have a low bounce rate. Other metrics will attest to this reality, including increased time on page (they are, after all, reading your material), repeat visits (they have bookmarked your website and will return), and click-through rates on any of the links on the page (they want more of your stuff).
Bounce rate vs Exit rate
Exit rate (alternatively called drop-off rate) is frequently mistaken with bounce rate, as both metrics indicate the percentage of sessions that terminated on a particular web page. The critical distinction is that the exit rate is calculated for both single-page and multi-page sessions. Consider the following distinction between the bounce rate and exit rate definitions:
- The Exit Rate metric indicates the proportion of all page views that occurred at the end of the session.
- The Bounce Rate metric indicates the proportion of sessions in which the entrance page was the only page viewed.
Unfortunately, that definition is quite broad, which is precisely why bounce rate is such a generally misunderstood measure.
Why is bounce rate important?
Bounce rate is a critical SEO parameter since it indicates the level of engagement with your content. A high bounce rate may indicate that visitors are unable to find what they are looking for on your website. Alternatively, it could be a hint that you need to improve your website's content or user experience. Whichever rationale you have, it almost always means that you are missing out on conversion opportunities.
A thorough examination of your bounce rate enables you to optimize a variety of website usability components, including navigation, call to action (CTA) placement, and content quality.
It's especially useful for comparing different pages on your website to one another. For instance, if a particular topic has an abnormally low or high bounce rate, this could imply that your audience favors or dislikes the subject.
How to calculate bounce rate
Bounce rate analysis is a relatively basic formula that can be expressed as a single equation. The percentage of visitors that leave a website after only visiting the landing page (the page that brought them to the site) and not engaging in any other activity, is divided by the total number of visitors to the site.
Why do visitors bounce?
Inconsistent search intent
Visitors may leave your site if the content is out of step with search intent. In other words, the page's contents do not correspond to the user's actual search.
For instance, if someone searches for "best trail running shoes" and your page contains a list of the greatest running shoes of all types, this is not the result they are looking for. They are simply interested in comparing trail running shoes and are not interested in wading through other shoe categories.
If you want to avoid bounces, it's vital that the page content matches the intent of the search keywords. This may also include writing a precise title tag and meta description for your page so that a search engine understands exactly what they will discover on it.
It is not sufficient to conduct keyword research alone; you must also evaluate rival SERP results and ascertain the intent behind those phrases. This method contributes to an increase in the proportion of qualified visitors from organic search, which can result in increased conversions and engagement.
Pages that load slowly
With widespread access to broadband internet and mobile devices equipped with 5G cellular connectivity, websites must load quickly. If a page's load time is excessively long, visitors will leave before even seeing the page's content.
You may optimize your page's speed in a variety of ways:
- Eliminate any superfluous third-party scripts
- Upgrade to a faster web host Configure lazy loading to ensure that images load only as a user scrolls down the page
- Eliminate bulky page elements that increase loading time (images, GIFs, etc.)
- Eliminate unnecessary third-party scripts that must be loaded prior to a user interacting with your site (heat maps, analytics, etc.)
- Utilize browser caching, which saves specific components in a user's browser so they don't have to be reloaded every time the page is accessed.
When all other factors are equal, a faster page speed results in a lower bounce rate.
Too many obstructive advertisements
If your page is overburdened with advertisements, users will immediately press the back button.
Multiple advertising on a page that disrupts the user experience and lengthens the time it takes for the page to load is infuriating for website users and can erode their faith in a company. Additionally, advertisements might cause the layout of a website to abruptly shift, making navigation difficult for consumers. Not only is this inconvenient for users, but it can also harm your search engine rankings, as Google considers page movements as part of its Page Experience ranking factor.
This is true not only for blogs but also for eCommerce websites. Popup adverts for sales or a mailing list are equally as obnoxious to users.
If your website has advertisements, ensure that they do not detract from the user experience.
Content of poor quality
If your pages include out-of-date, sparse material, visitors will have little reason to stay. After all, why would anyone want to continue exploring your site if their first impression was negative?
To keep visitors from bouncing, you need valuable, high-quality material that exhibits your knowledge and comprehensively covers the subject at hand.
A well-defined content plan is one of the most effective strategies for maintaining visitor engagement with your brand. Blog postings should comprehensively cover pertinent themes, address critical user journey issues, and clearly outline next steps via internal links.
How can you change that?
After you have identified the reasons why your users may bounce from your app, the next big question is - how do you engage with them so that they stay? There are a lot of approaches and methods that you can utilize and test at your will. However, you need to think a step ahead and analyze just what kind of quality tools you can use to gain maximum effect from your efforts. InAppStory provides such a toolkit that is capable of achieving your set mobile app goals.
In fact, our tool consists of several components that create an immersive and interactive experience for your users. Just to name a few examples, our experts offer:
- Onboarding Screens - whether it’s about your own mobile application features or relevant educational material, the onboarding sets of screens will be able to provide short and impact content that every user can easily digest.
- App Stories - if you want to share valuable and informative content with other people about your own organization, then mobile Stories can also provide you with such a feature.
- Gamification - be it an interactive Candy Crush similar game or an adventure-based one, you might want to incorporate them into your mobile app. The engagement and stickiness rates will surely go up in a matter of a few months.
- Quizzes - instead of a boring survey, you can collect the necessary feedback from users through a simple and funny quiz.
As you can see, our toolkit based on SDK allows us to greatly simplify the content approach and at the same time impact your major mobile app metrics. If you want to see the full potential of the Stories feature, then try it out for FREE for an entire month. All you need to do is leave your contact details and we’ll be able to give you access within 24 hours!