Bounce rate is the percentage of sessions on
a website with only one page view. Visitors came; they saw; they left without
clicking on anything. This metric comes standard in most analytic tools. It’s
not only a metric that’s easy to understand and explain, but it’s also very
actionable. By looking at the bounce rate, a digital marketer can quickly
identify pages within a website that need immediate attention (Kaushik, 2010).
For example, Ryanair, a low-cost airline
company in Europe, used analytics to reduce its website’s bounce rate. Since
99% of Ryanair’s bookings are made through its website, it is the company’s
most important marketing tool. As a result of using web analytics software,
Ryanair was able to make strategic decisions and increase conversion which, in
turn, increased the company’s revenue. One of the main metrics Ryanair focused
on improving was bounce rate. Ryanair was able to decrease its bounce rate by
18%, delivering bottom-line growth (At Internet, 2011).
Websites like Ryanair.com need to convert
visitors by buying something, filling out a form, etc. If a bounce rate is high,
it suggests visitors aren’t finding what they
were looking for or the page wasn't user-friendly (Kusinitz, 2014). A
digital marketer can drive a lot of traffic to a site via tactics such as
banner ads and keyword optimization. However, if these tactics are driving the
wrong target audience to the site or the landing page isn’t engaging with these
visitors, the time and money put forth to implement the tactics will be wasted.
Additionally, bounce rates will be high, and consequently, conversion rates
will also be lower as well as the sales that go with those conversions
(Kaushik, 2010). Bounce rate should be
measured not only at the aggregate level for an entire site, but also for the
site’s top landing pages. Furthermore, an analytics tool should also be
leveraged to measure bounce rates and should also be measured for your
website’s top referrers and search keywords – both paid and organic (Kaushik,
2010).
To attract the right visitors, digital
marketers need to choose the right keywords to attract the desired target
audience, not just any visitors. To accomplish this, digital marketers can
create multiple landing pages with unique content and keywords for the
different target audiences. Top rankings should also be maintained for branded
terms. Additionally, attractive, useful meta-descriptions should also be
written for search engine users (Kusinitz,
2014).
To enhance usability, digital marketers
should do several things. First of all, they should make text readable. This
means there should be good color contrast, legible fonts, large headlines,
bulleted lists, a good use of whitespace and sensible organization. Secondly,
pages should also use good layout, including a quick navigation, easy to find
search, and sectioned content. This content needs to be user-friendly on
multiple platforms and browsers. Third, digital marketers can speed up pageload
to increase usability. Fourth, a user-friendly web page provides good content
that consists of an obvious main message with clear heads and subheads, messages
tailored to the target audience, stylish copy and images, a clear call to
action, and obvious links to next steps (Kusinitz,
2014).
In
order to test modifications to layout, content, etc. digital marketers can
conduct an A/B test, which is “a technique for testing two or more versions of
a page on your website” (Kaushik, 210, p. 197). Eye tracking software can also
provide valuable insight when trying to lower bounce rate by identifying where
people are looking. Therefore, modifications can be made to a page and heat
maps can be used to see if elements on the page such as a call to action button
to request a demo now draw the visitors’ attention. For example, heat maps
enabled Ryanair to learn what visitors interacted with on its site and then
used this information to improve its homepage design. Another way to gain
valuable information to improve lower bounce rate on a page is through Voice of
the Customer (VOC) qualitative data. Web analytics systems do a great job at
gathering quantitative data, but in order to describe subtle human behavior,
qualitative data is needed. If a visitor bounces, provide them with a quick
survey to gather qualitative data about their brief visit to the site
(Peterson, 2008).
(At Internet, 2011)
References
At Internet. (2011). Ryanair uses analytics to drive increased website revenue and
performance. Retrieved from http://www.atinternet.com/en/documents/ryanair-etravel-4/
Kaushik, A. (2010). Web analytics 2.0: The art of online accountability & science of
customer centricity. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing.
Kusinitz, S. (2014, July 17). How to decrease
your website’s bounce rate [Blog]. Retrieved from http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/decrease-website-bounce-rate-infographic
Peterson, E. (2008). The voice of the customer: Qualitative data as a critical input to Web
site optimization. Retrieved from https://www.hashdoc.com/documents/9021/the-voice-of-customer-qualitative-data-as-a-critical-input-to-web-site-optimization
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