Bounce Rate

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Bounce rate is just one of a mass of information provided by your Google Analytics that can help your local business marketing. Only one but possibly the most useful.

It tells you how many people left your website from the same page at which they arrived.

This might seem like a sterile piece of data but in fact what it is telling you is that your page is just not interesting enough to the person who just visited it to persuade them to visit other pages on your site.

And as the purpose of your website is to engage with your visitors in order to develop a relationship with them that’s not a very good start.

Remember your teenage years when you suddenly found yourself next to the person you most wanted to meet in the whole world? And you could think of so little to say that they drifted off with a bored look on their face. That’s the moment we’re talking about when your website visitor suddenly stopped being a prospect and became just another lost opportunity.

If what you have to say on your website is not interesting enough to persuade your visitors to stay then that’s your problem, not theirs, because your website is about meeting their needs, not yours.

Bad Bounce Rate

Here’s a snapshot from the Google Analytics of a local business owner with a real problem

The bounce rate is mirrored by the low Pages/Visit which shows that very few people looked at anything other than the page they landed on.

The visit duration confirms this. You’re not going to engage much in 30 seconds and these visitors obviously decided pretty quickly that they wanted to be somewhere else.

Compare that to this local business who has a very low bounce rate, visitors remain for nearly 1 and a half minutes and are viewing nearly 3 pages.

Interpreting your Analytics data is not hard and putting real meaning to the numbers to work out how your visitors are reacting to your web site is time well spent.

One of the great benefits of online marketing is that everything is measurable and many tools and services are free – including Google Analytics.

If you are not using Google Analytics on your local business website then it’s time to start – and if you don’t have a website yet then it’s time to worry!

Need help with any of this? Or maybe just not enough time to get to grips with it effectively then give us a call on 01924 459244