Alright, don’t let that song get stuck in your head. Let’s talk about bounce rate this month. Bounce rate is one of the biggest thieves of your online dollars and you may not even know the amount of damage it might be doing to your business. I recently came across a website where the owner is spending thousands of dollars in advertisements and the bounce rate is nearly 80%. Imagine 80% of your hard earn money going in the drain! Can you imagine the cost they must be paying out of their pockets for each online lead? What if you were to half that rate? Wouldn’t that be great? I always say, a dollar saved is TEN dollars earned!
So, why do some websites have such a high bounce rate? There are many factors that affect a website’s bounce rate. Firstly, most businesses fail to identify and profile the users that are visiting their website. Secondly, mo websites fail to take their users by hand and walk them through the website, all the way to the action you want them to take. It is really that simple. One of the best way to reduce the bounce rate is to have a gripping headline and introduction. That should be followed by an intuitive call to action. Choose your call to action carefully. Make it as natural as possible.
When I first take over a project, I spend a lot of my time understanding the business, its products, the website visitors and most importantly the customers. It is critical to research and profile the different types of users to your website. After that, create a matrix about the physiological state of each user group. Different users in different states will act differently.
Well, talking about states, I am in a great state of mind right now. I recently attended the Unleash the Power Within seminar by Tony Robbins, for the second time. Over the period of four days, he kind of pulls you apart and puts you back together; makes you feel like a new and improved YOU.It’s amazing! He talks about your mental state as a key to success.
Anyway, back to the topic. The point is that same user will react differently in a different state of mind. Try to profile each possible state your users could be in when visiting your website. You can’t please everyone, but the idea is to engage as many qualified users as possible.
Log in to your Google Analytics and check the bounce rate for last three months. Generally speaking, around 30-40% is average. If it is anything over 60%, your alarm bells should be ringing.
Sam Gupta is the managing director of Synapse Worldwide.
Sam would love to hear your thoughts on this advice column.
Tel: 1300 785 230
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Web: www.synapseworldwide.com
