The Single Most Important Website Metric

Have you ever wondered what the bounce rate stat on your website was actually good for? Sure, you might be a fancypants and already know the definition BUT did you know that it’s probably the most important metric on your website? And it could mean the difference between your website performing better than your very best employee or worse than that slacker you just fired.

So what is mysterious bounce rate exactly? Simply put, its the percentage of people who land on your website and then leave instantly without visiting another page.So basically a prospect hops onto your website, takes one look around and says, “I’m outta here!” It doesn’t matter how pretty the rest of your site is, that person will probably never see it.

Lowering your bounce rate can not only increase the number of conversions on your page but it can improve the quality of traffic to your site and keep visitors coming back! And… it’s not very tough to do.

By now I’m sure you’ve already checked out your site’s bounce rate and want to know what to compare it to. Well if you’d slowwww down I’ll tell you. The average bounce rate across all industries is about 40%. So here’s a few action steps you can do right now to lower your bounce rate and attract more quality visitors.

First check out your highest referring keywords. If the keywords that send a majority of traffic to your site don’t do a good job at describing what your site is about, you’ll end up with a bunch of confused visitors that are going to bail.

Do the same thing for traffic from your highest referring websites. Make sure the sites that are referring the most traffic to your website are quality websites related to your industry.

And finally… Take a good look at your landing page like a newbie. Heck, I’d even ask some friends who haven’t been on my site where they’d click next. Remove every button that isn’t relevant to the visitors next step and watch your bounce rate DROP!