The bounce rate is not one of the most important metrics to determine the success of an online business. Although other metrics such as overall revenue, conversions and abandoned cart rates require constant attention, the bounce ratio should not be ignored. It can help you understand your audience and identify issues with your site’s content.
The bounce rate of an ecommerce store is the percentage users who visit a page and then leave without seeing any other pages. If a single page visitor leaves the site from the same page that they opened, then a bounce occurs. We will be taking a deeper look at bounce rates and ways that ecommerce business owners could improve them to make their site more successful.
How can you determine your store’s bounce rate?
The bounce rate is a common metric found in Google Analytics’ User behavior report as well as other reports from popular analytics platforms. To calculate the bounce rate, you take all single-page sessions and divide them by the total number overall sessions. This gives you a percentage. Your site’s bounce rate is the percentage of sessions that users view one page before leaving.
What is the reason for a high ecommerce bounce rate?
High bounce rates on ecommerce sites indicate that users aren’t being forced to go through the conversion funnel. It can happen for many reasons, some of which are beyond your control. A high bounce rate is caused by the following:
The page was slow to load and the user quit.
How can you lower your site’s bounce rate?
There are many ways to improve the bounce rate of a website. It all depends on how you approach it and what your site’s purpose is. It’s impossible for a site with a zero bounce rate to exist, but best practices can be used to reduce it. These guidelines can be used to reduce bounce rates and maintain low bounce rates.
1. Enhance the user experience
Visitors will be more inclined to abandon a site that is difficult to use and navigate. A website that is easy to navigate and read will encourage users to spend more time looking at it, as well as interacting with it. This will reduce the bounce rate. The following are ways to improve and enhance the user experience:
Optimize your back-end so page load times are as quick as possible. Avoid pop-ups or interstitial ads that could disrupt the organic experience. Make the site’s navigation easy, intuitive, and accessible.
2. Optimize for Mobile Shoppers
Many websites fail to treat mobile shopping with the respect it deserves. We see too many desktop websites that look great on desktop but don’t work well on mobile devices. Mobile users will bounce less if you have a mobile-friendly experience that is intuitive, responsive, and visually appealing.
3. Keep your home modern and attractive
Sometimes looks are all that matters. Site visitors will have a positive first impression of your site if they see a clean, modern design. They’ll be more likely to explore it further. Visitors will be more inclined to search elsewhere for what they want if your website looks outdated in the last 5-10 years.
4. Add images to each page
Your site’s content can be enhanced by adding images, videos, and audio files. High-quality images that are compelling and relevant to the content of a site will increase their engagement. Images and videos are more likely to generate more engagement with your content than text, which increases both Time on Site (and Bounce Rate).
5. Interlink Content & Relevant Pages
Users will be more likely to click on links that are relevant to a page to add to the information they already have. Visitors will be more likely to visit multiple pages if they are able to cross-link pages with related content or products from other areas of the site. This can reduce bounce rates.
6. Optimize Keywords for More Targeted Results
To ensure that your keywords strategy is targeting the right audience, you should reevaluate it. Your site could be targeting the wrong keywords and not reaching the right audience. The same goes for sites that target too many keywords. It could also end up reaching the wrong audience at the wrong time in their conversion process. This can be improved by making adjustments to keywords used on pages that have high bounce rates.
7. Check Site Traffic Quality
If your bounce rate is high, it could indicate that your site is receiving low-quality traffic. This is traffic that isn’t specifically targeted at what you offer. Google Analytics allows you to narrow down the traffic sources that are bringing low-quality traffic and retarget your content toward more relevant sources.
8. Give reasons to keep interacting
Tell your customers why they should continue to explore your ecommerce website. Is there a promotion or sale that will not be available for long? You can tease visitors with useful information and other details on another page. Visitors will be less likely to abandon a site if they know the benefits of exploring it.
What does the Bounce Rate have to do with SEO?
Google wants their users to get the best results. It’s their job therefore to search the best content on the internet. A bounce rate that is too high can indicate serious issues on the site and signal search engines that the site is not being found useful.
Officially, Google says that bounce rate does not affect ranking. However, there is evidence that Google may be using bounce rates as a validation method. Google may look at the bounce rate of your homepage to determine which result they will choose. This is possible if your site and a competitor have similar content and perform well organically for the same keyword. The lower bounce rate wins in this instance.
Last Thoughts
Understanding bounce rate will give you a better idea of the success of your website’s content with your target audience. You can brainstorm ways to encourage your visitors to spend more time on the site and interact with the content. This will improve your website’s SEO ranking and bounce rate. Your content will be more relevant to your target audience. It will also meet their expectations. Visitors who visit your site after only one page are likely to leave.
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By: Volusion Staff
Title: A Brief Look at Ecommerce Bounce Rate—and How to Curb It
Sourced From: www.volusion.com/blog/a-brief-look-at-ecommerce-bounce-rate-and-how-to-curb-it/
Published Date: Mon, 02 May 2022 15:05:00 GMT
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