How much of a role does website design play in bounce rate for a site?
The bounce rate since we launched our website has been relatively high and consistent. My web developer has recently fooled around with some product changes to see if we could get the bounce rate down, but we've seen little marginal change. Any other ideas on how we can decrease our bounce rate? Kudos.
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Jan 8, 2015
To decrease your bounce rate, the best idea is to integrate a secure third party live chat plugin on your website. It will allow you to engage your online visitor on your website and to know their requirement. By the help of live chat you can also get the instant review about your services or product, which allow you to improve the quality of your services. To know more about how it will be effective for your website read http://freelivechatsupport.blogspot.com/2013/08/how-to-reduce-your-bounce-rate-and-raise-interaction.html
Dec 5, 2014
I think the website design question is a part of the bigger question, let me explain.
Bounce rate is the percentage of site visitors who leave after visiting one page. It's probably an indication that your site isn't providing the information the user seeks, the site could be taking too long to load or hard to navigate, or perhaps there's some larger disconnect between your site and your users.
Bounce rate is a measure of engagement that demonstrates the degree to which people are enjoying and interacting with content on your site. A high bounce rate may be an indication that your content isn't engaging or that your advertisements are misleading.
Lower bounce rates are important because it indicates optimized and efficient design and marketing. In order to reduce bounce rate, it's important to set up users' expectations through the content — whether that be the call-to-action in an ad or headlines that match blog content. You don't want your consumers to dredge through a poorly designed website, only to realize the information they are looking for isn't even there.
Some other things you want to look for is your brand Storytelling, social media responsiveness, and develop a better web design to lower bounce rate. If you would like more help, please feel free to contact me at 8by8 Design.
Dec 4, 2014
Colette: Simple question...How many pages on your website are single pages? If most of your pages are only 1 page rather than broken down into multiple pages that force a user to navigate between pages and if you answer the question the user is looking for in a single pageview, your bounce rate will always be high. The definition of bounce rate relates directly to single page views. A follow-up question would be what is the percentage of sessions on your site that have 0-10 seconds in duration versus > 30 seconds. The longer the engagement in time, the more valuable your site is in general (although each category has a norm). Just something to consider.
Dec 4, 2014
It has a huge role, we're talking here possible loading speed issues (which make people 'bounce', since they don't bother waiting for the page to load), if it's not responsive, you're probably losing the potential clients from mobile devices etc. A link to your web site would be great, I could provide a better answer if I see the site itself.
Dec 3, 2014
The design has quite a bit to do with the bounce rate, but not the aesthetics design as much as the layout and ease of use. The more complicated the pages are to navigate the quicker people leave the pages.
Dec 3, 2014
I don't know enough about your business but it depends on where your visitors are coming from. Off the top of my head, I think that the content must be aligned to what the visitor clicked on to get there. If your ad says "Buy Black Shoes here" and they click on it, then the page better have a way for them to buy black shoes from you. I have more questions than answers at this point but I hope this helps.
Dec 2, 2014
Bounce rate (the percentage of users who leave after viewing a webpage just once) is a result of users not finding value in what they are looking at. For every website, some people arrive to find that your website is not what they were looking for. Those people leave and that is fine. However, for people within your target market, the first few seconds of content they see determine whether they stay or leave. Design your pages to have a clear call to action (CTA) or engaging content.
Pretend your website is a small museum. Design is the tour guide. In each exhibition, you maintain interest by providing engaging content and then directing the visitor into the next portion of the tour.
Let the visitor doubt your ability to meet their unique need, and they will leave.
Give the visitor too many choices and they will become confused and leave.
Create friction (sign up forms, too small buttons), and visitors will not reach the end goal.
Above all create value that is focused on your customers. If you know WHO your customers are and WHAT they need and WHY the need it, then you can design an experience that delights them and keeps them coming back.
Dec 2, 2014
Well, I would say the website design plays an important role, when any visitors lands over the site the first thing they noticed is the website design, if they don't like the design they will tap over the close button at the top, A low quality design will result in visitors making confused about the brand. I would say design of a website is show how trust worthy you are !
Dec 1, 2014
Website has everything to do with impacting the bounce rate. Some of the issues in design development are how to give users quicker access to the information and/or services they are looking for. Convincing them you have what they are looking for and easy of access to the next desired point of action. That said, web design development should be part of your business plans marketing strategy.
Dec 1, 2014
A nice visually design website will add a lot of value to your site and may keep the visitors on your site for a few more seconds before doing something else. If your are considering a redesign to improve and help the user stay on your site keep us in mind.
With that said a bounce site is a different problem. There is a lot of good advice below. I would only add to refine your key words. Make sure they are located throughout your website.
Dec 1, 2014
Design and page load speed are the top reasons for bounces.
Under 50% bounce rate is usually pretty good for most markets.
Poor marketing is also a leading cause of increased bounce rates. Are you using contest or gimmicks to get people to your site? Does every page have a strong CTA to another page?
Dec 1, 2014
The principle at work here is whether the right people recognize your site as being what they're looking for.
If they're not looking for what you offer, you don't need their strain on the bandwidth.
You have 5 seconds or less to show them a trail to what they're looking for. You communicate that, in that brief time, through colors, images, and headlines. If you assure them that you offer what they're looking for (top screen, immediate understanding), they'll slow down to explore more thoroughly.
You didn't mention where the traffic is coming from. If it's pay-per-click, are you sending them to your home page or to a landing page that reinforces what the ad promised?
Same for keywords. A content landing page optimized for your important keywords might give them more confidence that they've come to the right place.
Split testing can help you identify which elements can be improved.
Dec 1, 2014
1. Examine where your traffic is coming from. Are users expecting to see something else not find it then press the back button.
2. Make sure all your pages are tracked.
3. If your site is designed well it's possible they are just looking for a phone number or address. Hence the 1 page view ( look for how long they stay ).
4. Play with ads and or keywords to better target your audience.
5. Are you using the above the fold to it's full potential?
Analyze specific data. A general site-wide bounce rate can vary too much due to the different marketing activities that run concurrently. Consider your bounce rate for specific traffic sources. Using other dimensions, like medium, campaign, landing page, to evaluate your bounce rate can also be more actionable than your general bounce rate.
Most websites will see bounce rates fall somewhere between 26% and 70%. Part of it really has to do with the content of your site.
Dec 1, 2014
This has everything to do with bounce rate.
The average bounce rate is actually higher than what you might expect. I think right now it is sitting at around 42% or something along those lines.
Think about this...If you rank well for a particular keyword that doesn't have a whole lot to do with your target market, or you rank for a keyword that isn't specific enough, that will contribute.
An example would be if we ranked high for web design. Sure...we might get 5,000 visitors to our site a month, but how many are looking for a website? If someone searched affordable web design companies...chances are they will interact more.
So - once you get those target market visitors on your site, your site needs to do its job. Above the fold, they need to see exactly what you do and how to get to where they want to go. The tool I absolutely recommend to reduce your bounce rate is http://crazyegg.com. This will help you understand what people are doing on your site right now.
We did this on our old new site (we developed a homepage and quickly scrapped it for another). Turns out, no one was scrolling down our homepage. The problem was...our testimonials, pricing, and the real meat and potatoes were a little lower down. Sure, we had great content on the inner pages but a lot of the value was right there on the homepage.
So we changed things up. Changed some words. Added some anchor text, and our conversion went up considerably. Our bounce rate is now 26%. Pretty low.
So - get Crazy Egg and you will see exactly what is going on.
Hope this helps. Message me if you need.
Dec 1, 2014
I can get a report together in the form of a blog post. Was planning on doing it anyways. Still tweaking some more things as we go along. Might wait for a few more weeks. One of the absolute best changes we made was putting anchor text at the top of the site which auto scrolls the user down the page to another point. This way, the user gets to see more without actually scrolling themselves. They tend to scroll up more often than scrolling down.
Also - I recently wrote an article on here that talks a little about bounce rate as well as Google ranking in general. Everyone can check it out here - http://www.mosaichub.com/resources/resource/how-to-drive-visitors-to-your-website-without-1st
Hi David! I would love to know what the before and after was of your home page. That would be interesting to see