This is why I'm Leaving You

So people are not really into what you're selling. And subsequently leaving you. Gone. Alone. But why? On the Internet people don't smell (yet), but people do smell when they are being served crap - and this is usually why users, customers, clients, and potentially new business leave websites. The Internet is cluttered with information, and if your website is not interesting enough or serving up the right info, the visitor is going to leave. This is your bounce rate.

So, what is a good bounce rate? Sadly, there isn’t a golden number for bounce rate or average time on page. Also, many factors can go into these metrics, such as what kind of traffic your site is attracting and the SEO that’s been done.

In general, a good bounce rate would be anything under 50%-60%. A large factor influencing bounce rate is what kind of page you’re looking at and what the content is on that page. If the page is largely informational on a topic without many links to other parts of your site, then a bounce rate above 60% wouldn’t be out of the norm. However, if the page is mainly a directory of links to, say, products you make or services you offer, than you should see a much lower bounce rate than 60%.

If your bounce rate is high, the first place to look is your site design. Make sure that links are easily identifiable, relevant, and intuitive on each page. Main site navigation links should be located on every page of your site, with the exception of landing pages. The aesthetics of your site should also be up-to-date since an ugly or out-of-date site can cause a user to turn away instantly. Unfortunately, your flashy confetti animations on the sidebars are not as attractive as they were last decade.

Finally, look at how long it takes to load pages on your site. If you have a ton of large, high-resolution images, pages may take too long to load. People are impatient and will most likely hop off your page and go onto the next one if the load time is excessive.

For more about bounce rates, check out this infograph from KissMetrics.