How much time does your average user spend on your website? When they spend too little time there, it will then be reflected in your analytics as bounce rate. A higher bounce rate will affect your search ranking, because the search engine assumes this is because your content is not fit for purpose, which may or may not be true.
Check your content
First of all, are you absolutely sure your content is quality content? You can tell by checking your search ranking and knowing how people come onto your page. If your ranking is high, and search terms are good, you can be sure that you are indeed providing targeted content.
What then are the causes of the high bounce rate?
Check your UX
One thing that marcom professionals are not always aware of, is the user experience of your website.
While most websites are nowadays responsive (if yours is not, you are in DEEP trouble) in order to respond to different devices, screen sizes and even browsers, UX is not just about responsiveness.
Clear navigational terms, use of navigational tools, or even the placement of forward and backwards arrows, contribute tremendously to a smooth user experience.
Other factors include colour use. Some colours do not contrast well on mobile screens. Some colours denote certain emotions, thus creating a conflicting emotional response between your content and your webpage.
Are you dull?
High bounce rates are often associated with the inability of the content to evoke emotions. If you treat your webpage and your content like Wikipedia, then you are totally missing the point, because there is already a Wikipedia. Whether it is for professional or personal reasons that one comes onto your page, it is not a sterile experience. If your content does not spark joy or satisfaction, it will not encourage the user to stay.
Are you producing corporate content? The same goes for you. Corporate content needs to be engaging, as it is very much part of the customer journey. For corporate content to be engaging, it needs to speak to the customer persona, addressing their concerns, their difficulties, their well-being and certainly providing bespoke solutions for them. Whether your customers are B2B or B2C, they are humans, so you should address them equally as persons not faceless organisations.
How interactive is your website?
Some people look down on interactive websites, but it has been shown that web experiences need to be gamified. This does not mean that your corporate website has to be turned into a Playstation. It just means the visual and aural interactions of your website need to capture the attention of your users. How are the visual cues of your links? Are they interactive? How about turning your portfolio of services into a carousel? How about getting your page load differently? There are many things you can do to enhance the gamified experience of your website, and that contributes to your users staying longer on your website.
Are there any internal links?
Often, you do not provide one piece of content for your target audience. You need to make sure once your users come onto your page, you make them stay to explore the other parts of your site. One way of doing that is to ensure there are sufficient internal links leading to similar content within your content itself, at the end of it, or in the sidebar. Do not overdo it though, because you don’t want your content to be a click-baity link soup. Put yourself in the position of your target persona: are the links be useful or interesting? Will they provide even more good content for my persona?
Do you have any thoughts or experiences about this topic? Let me a comment below!
Eureka Moments are not so much moments of sudden realisation or enlightenment like Archimedes. They are moments while I am in my commute when I get to reflect on things that someone mentioned to me, things that I am confronted with, things that I or others have sought a solution for. They are more ‘oh I get it’ rather than ‘I have discovered it’.
