In regards to landing pages, the bounce rate is one of the easiest ways to measure whether visitors like a certain page (or whether it’s providing the information they need).
Imagine this: you are looking for specific information, so you do an online search. You’re led to a website that looks promising, but you quickly realize the page you were sent to has none of the relevant information you were looking to find. Do you search through the rest of the website to see if you can find it?
No, you go back to your search results to find a different website. That’s what a bounce rate is when a visitor leaves your website after a single page view. The bounce rate can point you to a specific web page that needs your attention and some improvement.
How Can the Bounce Rate Report Help?
For each specific page of your website, you can view its corresponding bounce rate report to get a more detailed look at what’s happening behind-the-scenes when visitors view it. Which leads you to the most important thing to look for when viewing your reports: the entry page.
The entry page can give you a lot of information, but there are three specific measurements that you should pay attention to:
- The specific page
- The number of visitors to that page
- Bounce rate
If you find single page views accompanied by a high bounce rate, it’s time to be concerned.
What this means for your website (and for your keywords) is that visitors are being drawn to the entry page because of its keywords, but they aren’t finding the relevant information that they are looking for after that entry page. When you are attracting visitors to your website, you want them to continue browsing your other pages for related content to increase your rate of conversion and sales. But, a page with a high bounce rate means they are leaving immediately after viewing that entry page.
So, when going through your report make a note of any pages with exceedingly high bounce rates.
How high is that?
Anything in the 90-100% range is something you should make a note of, along with the number of visitors to that specific page.
What do these numbers mean exactly?
When you view your bounce rate on Google Analytics, for example, it is the percentage of viewing “sessions” on your site, where a visitor only viewed a single page. Or, only a single request was made to the Analytics server.
A high rate isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it depends on what kind of site you have.
For example, if you run a blog or have content where a single-page viewing is often or expected, a high bounce rate isn’t something to be concerned about. However, if you want to lead visitors to other sections of your site past the entry page (product pages, articles, checkout, etc.), then a high percentage of single-view sessions is a problem.
Analyzing with Bing Webmaster Tools
Once you have made a note of the landing pages that need improvement or restructuring, then it is time to utilize webmaster tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools can be used to determine which pages have the highest bounce rates and that consequently need improvement, within your Bing Webmaster Tools page traffic report.
First, click on the Reports and Data, then navigate to Page Traffic, and then click on the View Search Keywords under each URL.
The page traffic report will give you the opportunity to determine what keywords are sending visitors to the web page in question.
A great practice to keep in mind while you are doing this research is to have the same web page open on your computer while you’re looking at the page traffic report. You can look at the report to determine what keywords are driving visitors to a specific page, and you can simultaneously check the page to evaluate whether the information is relevant to the keywords.
This is the main reason why pages have high bounce rates, that the subject in question isn’t being discussed or address on the page they are led to.
How Can You Improve Your Bounce Rate?
- Place the words and information in an easily accessible and logical place on the page. If a visitor can’t find the information easily, they will simply find another website.
- Improve the tone of the page; is the page and the information giving the visitor what they would expect?
- Make sure your landing page reflects the information your visitor is looking for; it seems simple enough to do, but can easily occur if you aren’t diligent with evaluating the information and keywords on your website. If your website content doesn’t match the visitor’s intent, then this will be a driving force towards high bounce rates.
- Finally, if you have old, outdated content, try to update it and repurpose it for more traffic.
At the end of the day (or at the end of the web page), make sure your goals are coming across clearly on your landing page. If you want visitors to be directed towards additional content, a specific article in your blog, or ways for them to engage with your brand or business, make sure your landing page reflects that.
Create an easy-to-access call-to-action button, social media engagement buttons, clear and direct links to the information they are searching for, or anything that will gently push your visitors in the direction you need them to go.
