Why Do I Have a High Bounce Rate & What Can I Do About It?

Are you concerned about your website’s bounce rate? What factors contribute to a high bounce rate, and how has our digital agency improved our clients’ bounce rates? Read on for some solutions, plus the most unbelievable bounce rate statistics we’ve ever seen (and maybe, you’ve ever heard).

What is Bounce Rate?

If you discussed “bounce rate” with someone 40 years ago, one might think you were referring to a jump rope or even a trampoline. Today, the term “bounce rate” doesn’t refer to someone bouncing up and down at all. Rather, it refers to digital “bounces” made when viewing a website.

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page. This statistic matters because it shows you how effective your website is at keeping visitors engaged and on your website. It tells us if we’ve done a good job with website strategy.

The bounce rate percentage is one of the many categories we track for our clients due to its correlation to, and importance of page speed and user engagement. 

Before we dive deep into bounce rates and how our clients are performing compared to industry averages, it is important to understand this topic from a higher level.

Why Does Your Website Have a High Bounce Rate?

• Website load speed – Fast loading websites keep users on the page longer. Slow loading websites cause mobile users to leave, sometimes before the website even renders (causing a high bounce rate).
• Website construction – The choices you make when it comes to your website’s platform (CMS), hosting, and even plugins can affect your website visitor’s experience. Well-developed websites that are intuitive and easy to navigate encourage users to stick around.
• Design – Your website design can strongly affect a user’s attention, and thereby your website’s bounce rate. A well-designed website keeps a user interested and engaged.
• Messaging – Is your website giving off the right impression through the messaging found on the homepage, or other important pages of your site? This can all affect bounce rate. If you’re unclear with your message, or with the explanation of your products and services, you may turn off visitors and give them no reason to dive deeper.
• Images – Just like messaging, are you using strong images that portray your business and its products and services? Or are you using generic stock photography that gives the user the impression that you don’t care?

If bounce rate is really based on a combination of a website’s copy, design and construction, it makes sense to focus in part on the choice of platform your website is built on. After all, this business decision affects your profitability long-term.

Your Website Content Management System (CMS)

Most companies build their website on platforms such as WordPress and Squarespace. Even at WISE Digital Partners, we historically have used WordPress to build our client’s websites. One attractive feature of these types of hosting sites is the flexibility to have endless plugin features such as reviews, email marketing, lead generation, and SEO tracking. Although plugins can provide functionality with low upfront effort, they can also be a detriment to website growth. One major downfall to plugins is the negative impact on a website’s load time: The more plugins a website has, the slower the speed time. This not only decreases a website’s visibility but also negatively affects engagement and user experience (and potentially search rankings).

While plugins impact a website’s load time, it doesn’t mean that businesses shouldn’t use them. Here at WISE, there are still instances where we choose to utilize WordPress. However, weighing the benefit of plugin functionality vs. potential performance downgrade always plays into our decision.

Clearly, the platform your website is built on can make a difference.https://www.wisedigitalpartners.com/why-page-speed-important/ For businesses who are looking to build a new website with improved bounce rates, user experience, and conversions, we built NEST.

Introducing: NEST!

NEST is a website and marketing platform that was designed and built fully in-house at WISE for small and medium sized business owners. From the website build process to continuous marketing efforts after the completion of the site, NEST is a platform for all marketing needs. But NEST isn’t just a website platform. It also includes the added benefits of ADA compliance, analytics, SEO, listings management, lead tracking, and most importantly, the strategic support from our WISE team to help you grow your business.

And yes, NEST websites feature greatly improved bounce rates too.

NEST: Before and After

Let’s take a look at how our client websites were performing with their average bounce rate percentages before and after they switched to our NEST platform. Keep in mind, the average bounce rate across all industries is 40%-60%.

• DC Plumbing
  • Before WISE – monthly bounce rate averaged 89.6%
  • 12 months on NEST – the bounce rate has averaged 7.87%
• Design Appruv
  • Before WISE – monthly bounce rate averaged 86.29%
  • 4 months on NEST – the bounce rate has averaged 19.8%
• Painted rhino
  • Before WISE – monthly bounce rate averaged 64.12%
  • 3 months on NEST – the bounce rate has averaged 2.75%
• Karma Spa
  • Before WISE – monthly bounce rate averaged 54.37%
  • 4 months on NEST – the bounce rate has averaged 2.83%
• Hoffman Hanono
  • Before WISE – monthly bounce rate averaged 44.79%
  • 4 months on NEST – the bounce rate has averaged 2.20% (in two separate months we recorded a 0% bounce rate)

As you can see, NEST clients across all industries have seen incredible improvement in their bounce rate, as shown by the dramatic decrease in percentages above. Again, a majority of industries and websites have a bounce rate ranging from 40%-60%. The average bounce rate of the 5 NEST clients noted above is 7.09%! This shows how our team is constantly working to make sure every aspect of your marketing is being updated, tracked, and improved.

Stop Bouncing, Start Soaring

Our team of experts is here to build the NEST and help your business grow. Are you ready to fly?

Schedule a meeting with myself or my sales director through the contact form and we can walk you through how NEST works and the support we offer businesses in their journey to new customers and clients.