How Do you Reduce Bounce Rates?
-
I'm doing work for a website right now that sells musical instruments. They have great content on their site but we're helping them to create even better content. We've been working with them for 2 weeks now and they average about 180 site views a day according to Google analytics.
Their pages also have very high bounce rates (70-98%)
What are your best ways to reduce bounce rates?
-
Absolutely. If the content of the page matches the apparent query intent, then the problem may be that people simply don't want to give their money to this company. Does the site look professional? Does it look reputable? Is the information laid out in a clear, attractive way? Are the pictures bright and appealing? It's the difference between walking into a dim, dirty shop with tacky decor and messy displays and a comfortable, beautiful department store.
Conversion rate optimization is a huge topic -- as big as SEO itself. Rand did a high-level overview webinar about CRO recently, but they had repeated technical problems so I don't think they uploaded it to the SEOmoz webinar section (http://www.seomoz.org/webinars). He recommended Conversion Rate Experts' blog (http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/).
-
I would suggest to to find out how visitors get to these pages...
That's Mark's comment. I agree with him.
-
I totally agree with you. This is an e-commerce site that sells guitars though. The information is there. For some reason the bounce rates are high.
Could it have to do with the way the products are shown and the formatting of the page?
-
I would suggest to to find out how visitors get to these pages that have high bounce rates. Perhaps they end up there via search terms that are not relevant enough. If that is not the case then you need to go into the content. Is it clear enough, do you have good products images and are they big enough. You could consider asking people that leave a page to answer 3 simple questions (there are tools for that) and find out why they left the page.
Good luck!
-
That is pretty high. However don't assume that all bounces are bad. A bounce can actually be an indication that your site has done it's job well - it's down to the intent of the user.
I prefer to look at bounce rates either by page or by term. If people are bouncing on terms that are likely to have commercial intent then that isn't great. However for informational searches it might mean that the site is answering their query. That strong content might be the cause - you're becoming a reference site. Not necessarily bad.
However, bounces rarely pay bills... Try separating out searches with commercial and informational intent and compare both the volume and bounce rate. That might give some indication as to how best to tackle the issue (and what issue you are tackling).
If you have a high bounce rate on terms with commercial intent then look at the quality of your product information, pricing, issues around trust etc. If you can get outside opinion on it, even a small sample, that can help.
Conversely, if the problem is that you have an overly large proportion of research only terms then if could be that you need to look at how to increase visibility on the more commercial terms, or possibly look at ways to turn those information seekers in to customers (check loyaly and visits to purchase... they might be already, but just taking their time).
Pretty big topic actually.
-
What are your best ways to reduce bounce rates?
Create lots of content about high interest topics and then make seductive links to those pages and place them where every visitor will see them.
Their pages also have very high bounce rates (70-98%)
Sounds like this might be image search visitors.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Vat conversion rates (UK)
Does anyone have any evidence about the impact of displaying or not displaying prices including VAT on your website on conversions? A client wants to show prices excluding VAT so the prices look competitive with their competition who also display excluding VAT (20% UK sales tax). I have explained that the sudden 20% increase to the basket cost will put off a lot of customers (even if all prices are marked as excluding tax) but they will not listen. We have previously displayed both prices but this looked messy and customers got confused. What I really need is some research that shows what the impact of doing this is (ignoring the fact that it is not even allowed by HMRC). Any thoughts welcome!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | MrFrisbee0 -
Any Reports on Conversion Rate Drops in 2014?
I'm looking for some reports about conversion rate changes over the past year as well as any trends you may have noticed about ecommerce conversion rates because we are seeing something quite odd. We are seeing a large drop in overall conversion rates on some sites I manage this year despite seeing significant revenue growth. When I looked through the stats I found something interesting. Our conversion rates have actually increased on each of the three device types (desktop, tablet and mobile) but because there is a huge surge in visits from mobile devices (the device with the lowest conversion rates) and a large decline in vistis from our top convertor (desktop) our overall conversion rates are down. This is especially troubling to me because my bonus was based on increasing conversion rates and I could use some help from you to see if others in the industry are facing this issue or not. Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Damascity0 -
Any General feedback or Experience on Page Titles and Click Through Rates ?
Moz, I have managed to climb onto page one for a couple of keywords i am really happy with, Just looking for any feedback on page titles and different effects on CTR The page i am working with is product pages I tried a simple headline which was a branded product keyword, this way when the keyword matches the user search it will stand out as the the majority of the title is bold because of this match,, Example below <title>Jeffs<strong> Lollipops</strong></title> and my other option is to look at testing a more descriptive title to fit the limit <title>A selection of sweet Strawberry and Cherry<strong> Lollipops</strong> from Jeff<//Title></p> <p>has anyone looked into this and tested for results in CTR ? i can see there being a youmoz about it somewhere?</p> <p>Alot of people i assume will just say test test test, but any feedback on how other moz users tackle title tags for CTR would be great,</p> <p>Thanks</p> <p>James</p> <p> </p> <p> </p></title>
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Antony_Towle0 -
What is the Average Pogo Rate?
I've created a custom Google Segment which you can find here. Segment Settings: Organic Traffic Sessions with 1 visit. Sessions with less than 15 seconds time on site. To calculate Pogo rate then I looked at Pogo vs. Total organic and got the percentage of Pogo sessions. I tested a group of 20 sites and got 53% on average with a high of 87% and a low of 33%. What do you get? Any interesting insights?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | eyeflow0 -
Track bounce rate per PPC keyword
Hi all Wondering if anyone could give me a nudge in the right direction with this please. When running an adwords campaign is there a way in which one can track the bounce rate on the landing page per keyword sending paid traffic? I've had a play about in adwords and GA and couldn't find the right option. The site I am sending traffic to is not a ecommerce site so cannot set up conversion tracking so we are going to monitor the bounce rates of different keywords and drop the ones which are bouncing much higher than others as it seems better to invest the budget in those words which are keeping people on the page for longer. Many thanks Carl
Conversion Rate Optimization | | carl_daedricdigital0 -
Please Settle a Bounce Rate Debate
Here's the Question: If a person clicks a PPC ad and hits the landing page, and the landing page has a form to fill out embedded in it without having to click, does that count as a bounce if the person leaves the page immediately after filling out and submitting the form or does the submission negate the bounce tally? Hope this makes sense and thanks in advance.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | jesse-landry0 -
How important is Conversion Rate Optimisation?
Silly question I know but just wanted to talk about it, more of a discussion then anything. How important is CRO to you? Anyone have any stats before and after? Cheers
Conversion Rate Optimization | | activitysuper0 -
Top 5 Conversion Rate Tips for a "Beds Shop E-commerce"
Which are in your opinion the "Top 5 things to do" to increase the conversion rate in a beds e-commerce site? The conversion is "to sell a bed" 🙂 The website is http://www.idealetti.com Thank you in advance to everyone that share his experience or give some advice!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | YESdesign0