Author: Patrick Hare

Whether you're using Google Analytics, Clicktracks, Webtrends, or any other analytics program, one of your big considerations from a web design and SEO standpoint should be your bounce rate. Simply defined, "bounces" are visits to your site that don't go to any other page, and usually this means that the visitor has either closed the window (which is bad) or clicked back to the search results (which is worse).

Search engines have a vested interest in seeing if a click resulted in a clickback, because this serves as an indicator that the result that was presented may not be sufficiently relevant to the search topic. An engine like Google doesn't even need to use its analytics program to know that your site bounced since it already knows that a unique IP address made a search, visited a site, and then came back within a certain amount of time.

According to search engines, a certain bounce rate is sufficient to get your rankings lowered in the search engines for that keyword. Luckily, your analytics program can tell you what the bounce rate is on certain pages, and drill down by certain traffic sources, so you can quickly discover if your bounces are the result of searches, direct traffic, or referring sites.

Here are some of the top tips for reducing your website visitor bounce rate:

1. Eliminate bad traffic.

This tip is more for money saving purposes than SEO, but it is a very important consideration. You can use analytics to see what PPC keywords are more likely to bounce, and you should probably shut down those keywords until you either improve your site or determine if they are relevant. Likewise, if you're buying traffic from other sites and it isn't making a profit for you, then you should cut your losses.

2. Don't let them blink.

Website marketers talk about a "ten second rule," an "8 second rule" or a "4 second rule" when they are referring to the time a visitor takes to see whether they want to stay on the site. In the days of dialup, people were more patient when they were waiting for the page to load, but now you have to grab people with a proposition as soon as they land on the site. Likewise, if your page takes a long time to load, you may get bounced before it finishes.

3. Pretend your webpage is a TV screen.

The term "above the fold" is used in online marketing to denote the space on a webpage that is visible before people have to scroll down. If you had to put your site information in the visible space of a TV screen, consider how you would place information in order to keep people interested.

4. Improve your calls to action.

Every page on your site should be a selling page, and your visitors should have clear choices and options that attract clicks. If you're selling a variety of products, make sure that all the important categories are first ones that can be found.

5. Improve site navigation.

Search engines can land visitors on just about any page. If the site navigation (either on the left margin or along the top) contains the keyword that a visitor is looking for, then that person is more likely to click to another page.

6. Modernize your page design.

Web visitors have a certain expectation when the visit a site. If you're using blurry images, multiple large fonts, and a site design that hasn't been updated in years, people will leave.

7. Cut back on the animations and videos.

The human eye is attracted to movement. Any moving elements on your page should be calling attention to an important message or offer, but at most there should be two moving elements. Ideally, there should be a single animation or video, since it won't distract people.

8. Use the right color scheme and fonts.

This can vary by industry, but most of the time sites with black backgrounds and dark text are hard to read. Rough looking fonts like Times New Roman are not as easy on the eyes, and small fonts may be hard for some people to read. When in doubt, use Verdana. Also, remember that too many bright colors on a page may draw the eye away from a call to action.

9. Say thanks.

If you have a form on the page, make sure to take visitors to a separate "thank you" page when the form is filled out. This is also a great page to add to the "goals" section in Analytics. A "thank you" page also represents an opportunity to show customers some of the services, features, and benefits that they might have missed.

10. Encourage them to learn more.

You can have a brief product description with a link for more info, or a quick message that draws people to go to a link, or a link to a "how to" video that gets people to a new page.

(As a final technical issue, you may see an artificially high bounce rate if you don't have analytics installed on every page. This won't hurt you in the search engines, but it does make it hard to gather accurate enough data to make a decision.)

Search engine factors aside, lowering your bounce rate is a tremendous opportunity to improve conversions and squeeze more opportunities out of your existing traffic. You can even use analytics data to see if some referring sites are sending you bad traffic, or if you are experiencing click fraud. For instance, if a site that runs content match PPC ads is sending you traffic with a 99% bounce rate and an average of one second on the site, you're probably getting ripped off.

Even without worrying about click fraud, improving your user experience is going to get people further into your site, which makes them more likely to bookmark a page, make a phone call, or make a purchase. Ideally, you want any ecommerce website design to follow a retail store model, where longer visit times and a pleasant shopping experience have been shown to increase the likelihood of a purchase.

Since the internet puts thousands of similar stores at a customer's fingertips, you want to make sure people aren't walking out the door within a few seconds of their initial visit. By making a few positive steps to cut your bounce rate, you will not only improve your search engine position potential, you can also improve your ROI, lifetime customer value, and the amount of money in your pocket.

About the Author:
Patrick Hare has been managing online and offline marketing projects since 1999. From 2005 to present, he has been with Scottsdale Arizona's Web.com Search Agency (formerly Submitawebsite). Patrick provides Search Engine Optimization and Marketing advice to in-house customers and Web.com Jacksonville's web design group. "