What is a Bounce Rate?

In terms of website statistics like Google Analytics, a bounce rate is the percentage of website visitors that leave without viewing any other web pages other than the one they land on.

If your website is a single page, then this is nothing to worry about.

However, if your website contains more than one web page, then a high bounce rate may indicate:

1. The website visitor thinks your website is irrelevant to their interests,
2. The website visitor experienced a long delay for the first web page to load, and left before it completed loading,
3. The website visitor thought your web design was unprofessional, or the page layout was broken, or not mobile-friendly, and they thought this reflected poorly on your business, and left,
4. The website visitor’s web browser reported that your website was malicious (delivering malware), and left.

Each of these cases has a solution.

1. If your website visitors think your website is irrelevant:
   
   You may need to adjust the webpage content to be written more about the customer, than your business. I.e. write about what your business can do for your customer, and what your customer can do with your product and service, and the result they receive, rather than write all about your company.
   
   You could include more product photos, or service benefits.

2. There are methods to speed up a website:
   1. Ensure you’re not uploading photos to your website as .PNG files. Make sure they’re .JPG files. Only upload graphics as .PNG files.
   2. Allow your website to serve compressed assets.
   3. Add browser caching to your website assets.
   4. If you’re using a CMS (content management system), investigate to see if there is a caching plugin available for your CMS.

3. If your website design is dated or unprofessional, it may be time to hire a professional website designer to give your website a refresh. A design refresh can also cure any broken layouts, and can be mobile-friendly too.

4. If your web browser is reported your website as malicious, you’ll need a website professional to clean and secure your website.

Contact us if you need any assistance with the above topics.