Stop Making Customers Puke
Fix the problem and you will increase your leads and sales by 42 percent
Here’s a scenario that happens every day within the typical small business…
Someone visits the website’s home page, a product page, or perhaps a blog post the business owner wrote.
The person quickly scans the page from top to bottom, left to right, and after a second or two, they decide they hate it. They puke in a bucket and then immediately leave.
And they continuing searching…SOMEPLACE ELSE.
That person “bounced” because he or she was not motivated enough to make one single click within the site.
Bounce rate is one of the most powerful metrics we have because it gives us insight into whether or not our customers believe we are delivering the value they want and need.
Most un-optimized websites have a bounce rate between 50 to 60 percent (this represents huge opportunity for you if you apply steps 1-2-3 below).
In other words, after all of the hard work you put toward building traffic through trade shows, advertising, public relations, email campaigns, content development, social media, and search engine optimization, between 50 and 60 percent of the people you attract will immediately leave without making one single click.
Let’s do a quick test. Stop reading, open your Google Analytics dashboard, and check your bounce rate. If it 30 percent or less, give yourself a pat on the back because that is the target you should strive to reach.
But if your bounce rate is above 50 percent, then the rest of this article will provide you with three steps you can apply to drive down bounce rate while converting more of your traffic into leads and sales.
Let’s first calculate the dollar value that bounce rate is currently costing you.
Say your website attracted 12,539 unique visitors during the past 12-months.
And let’s say your website bounce rate is currently right in the middle of the 50 to 60 percent range (54.88 percent to be exact).
That means 6,881 site visitors immediately bounced from your website during those 12-months (12,539 x .5488 = 6,881).
The remaining 5,659 were the suspects you could attempt to convert into a lead or sale through some form of call-to-action, such as a phone call, visit to your store, etc.
Now, let’s say your call-to-action process has been fine-tuned over the years so 4.77 percent of your suspects are converted into leads (between 2 to 4 percent is the global standard).
This means 270 leads, phone calls, store visits, etc. were generated during the 12-months (5,659 suspects x .0477 conversion rate = 270).
And lastly, let’s assume you have a history of converting 50 percent of your leads, such as inquiries, phone calls, store visits, etc. into sales, and each sale has an average value of $500.
The revenue generated via your website should have been approximately $67,500 (270 x .5000 = 135 sales x $500 value = $67,500).
Now, let’s lower bounce rate to the target level of 30 percent.
I first learned about the 30 percent target from my good friend and mentor, Avinash Kaushik, digital marketing evangelist for Google and co-founder of Market Motive.
Now only 3,761 of the visitors bounce during the same 12-month time period (12,539 x .3000 = 3,761).
You now have 8,778 suspects instead of 5,659. Big difference.
Let’s also assume you maintained your 4.77 percent conversion rate into leads and your average order remained at $500.
Your 8,778 suspects would convert into 418 leads, and those leads would convert into 209 sales, which would result in $104,500 in revenue (418 x .0477 = 418 x .5000 = 209 x $500 = $104,500).
This represents a 54.81 percent increase in sales. Awesome.
And the only thing that changed was bounce rate.
Here’s the good news…any business owner can apply three simple steps to reduce bounce rate. At the bottom of this article you will find a mini-class I recorded to provide some additional bounce rate insights.
Step 1: Complete the X-Y-Z Exercise
Just answer three simple questions and blend the answers into a clear and concise statement.
1. We do X (X equals the products and services your business provides to customers)
2. For Y (Y equals the profile of your typical customer)
3. So that they can Z (Z equals the result outcomes your customers receive from your products or services)
Then place your X-Y-Z statement on your website above the fold.
Your visitors will see it right away and they will know they are in the right place. When that happens, bounce rate goes down.
Go here for a tangible example. The bounce rate is 7.42 percent.
Step 2: Eliminate Visual Clutter
The March 2013 issue of the Harvard Business Review reported the results of a study on consumer choice, which confirmed that providing more options did not increase choice. In fact, more options actually decreased choice.
So instead of having 15 options on your website, i.e. photos, copy blocks, or calls-to-action, just have three easy-to-understand options and eliminate all the rest. Your customers see a multitude of options as visual clutter and that encourages bounce.
Step 3: Create Clear Calls-to-Action
Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, director of Marketing Experiments once said to me, “Clarity always trumps persuasion.”
So are you being clear with customers regarding the steps they need to take along the decision-making path?
Have a clear and concise path to purchase.
Here’s the mini-class I promised earlier. Follow the 3 steps — reduce your bounce rate—and increase your leads and sales by 42 percent.
Drop me a line here @stephenwoessner if you have questions about bounce rate. Happy to help you.
