How to Decrease Website Bounce Rate in Google Analytics
Do your landing pages stand up to scrutiny?
Is website traffic landing, reading then leaving without clicking, add-to-cart, registering, signing up or tapping the contact us page? If this is what people do on your website, join the crowd!
Let’s find the magic pill, the ultimate hack, push the secret stop-bouncing button and get people to take the action you want them to take on your website. We will learn how to decrease website bounce rate.
What is Website Bounce Rate and Why Care?
Last week’s post discusses website bounce rates in-depth. Review it before diving into reducing your bounce rate.
Good, you came back.
Let us summarize website traffic bounce rates this way: a Google analytics bounce (as registered in GA) is when a user opens a single webpage or landing page and exits the same page without clicking on any other buttons or links during that session.
E.g. if you Googled “how to decrease bounce rate“.
- and This post was on page 1 in the SERPs, and if you liked the title, read and liked the meta description and the URL was ok..
- and clicked the link and the page loaded in less than <2 seconds
- and you read everything on the page
- did not click on any links, buttons etc. and tapped the tab.
Then Google Analytics would register your session with a 100% bounce rate.
Got that? Arrive and leave equals 100% bounce. Bounce is when traffic arrives directly on a page, stays for seconds or minutes then leaves. That one instance counts as a 100% bounce rate.
Don’t worry, I am Urban Renström, there is always science and research involved in everything I talk about, teach, and demonstrate.
The other side of the coin 👛 is the Avg. Time on Page.
The average time on a page is independent of the bounce rate and vice versa. Yet, the avg. time on page tells the story of how long people stayed on the page.
So even if a person stays 3-4 minutes on your page and leaves that is still registered as a 100% bounce rate 🤔.
So getting people to take further action is your responsibility. Bounce tells us there % of people who did not take further action. Further action is clicking on links, the about us page, reading more articles, visiting the services page etc.
A 78.80% bounce and 4:13 time spent on a page is not a complete disaster. And those numbers are a roaring success if the other 28.2% of people who didn’t bounce spent €10k each!
Learn to read the behaviour reports in GA as they provide depth and richness into the interaction people take on your website.
This 👇 image is from a previous post and is helpful.
Bounce Rate – 154 people (78.80% of the 196 unique page views) arrived from outside the website and then left this page without viewing any other page or clicking any other buttons or links on the page.
Before you light up your web guru or your CRO strategist to redesign your website figure out why people are not doing what you want them to do.
How to Decrease Website Bounce Rate in GA
The purpose of each webpage is unique….scratch that! The goals of similar pages must be the same.
Take for example the Facebook category of blog posts on this website.
My goal, besides driving traffic and edutainment is to offer the FB Ads Emergency resource as a product I sell. The FB Ads Emergency is a resource answering the most (un)common FB ads queries.
In GA, the Facebook Content (Content group), red #1 in the below image, are the blog posts with Facebook as the category.
Red #2 is the average time on page, 1:44 for this content group and the bounce rate, red #3 is 44.44%.
Mind you 44.44% of 517 is 229 people. And 288 (517-229) is 55.56% of the total unique page views. 228 people clicked some other link on the page or clicked on the FB Ads emergency banner. I checked and people arriving on the FB ads emergency page are in the single digits.
This suggested to me that >1/2 of people are clicking on links reading other articles, looking at my services page etc. This is good, but very few people are “doing what we want them to do“.
“doing what we want them to do” is requesting a strategy session, purchasing services, or requesting access to the Facebook ads emergency resource.
What is the Goal for a Page or Group of Pages?
More sales Urban. I want more sales. And if we drop our bounce rate to 1 % our sales will skyrocket!
I get that you want sales!
The big picture is always to make more sales.
Pulling on the idea string, what is the intermediate goal and what are micro-commitments for a page or group of pages to help you get more sales?
- Read more of your award-winning articles.
- Signup for your newsletter?
- Apply for a strategy session?
- Buy a course?
- Buy a service?
- Click the contact us button.
Decide on a goal because people are not splashing the cash on the first page they land upon, are they?
Then what are the intermediate steps you want your ideal client to take before the add-to-cart button, request a strategy session or click the contact us button?
Visualise, improve or plan the customer journey on your website. Here 👇is a visitor journey flow I threw together earlier.
One and Done – Buy my €999 Coaching Package
Is your plan that people will read one page and buy my coaching package?
Do you believe people read one blog post and buy a €999 coaching package?
Do you believe people read a testimonial and buy your €999 coaching package?
Do you believe people see your fancy award-winning website design and buy your €999 coaching package?
Probably not.
With a plan; good, bad or terrible you can course correct. Without a plan, you are rudderless, adrift at sea and dead in the water.
Plan and create a visitor flow plan. Suggest to visitors they read more of the same articles. Ask questions of people. Gamify the website. Capture names and email addresses via videos, lead magnets, free courses, and checklists. Most importantly, help people to get to know you, like you and trust you.
Not before people trust you will they buy from you.
Therefore, ask yourself if I reduce the bounce rate to 1% will my sales magically increase tomorrow?
Probably not.
Decide to do differently and set up goals for each page and a visitor flow to get people to know you, like you and trust you.
Bounce Rate Final thoughts
Are you helping people along with their journey from problem unaware/problem aware/solution aware/provider aware/to most aware states?
These are the 5-steps of Eugene Schwartz customer journey to convert daydreamers into cash-in-hand buyers.
Reducing the bounce rate is not rocket science. You have the tools, you have the skill, and now you are fortified with knowledge. Go forth and conquer your bounce rate.
