Decrease Your Bounce Rate and Increase Your Sales

Original Article from IntelliSites, the smart choice for web design (and SEO!)
It's safe to say that traffic to your website is a good thing.  Any visitors to your web page are like people walking into your store. It's a good sign.

But what we really like to see are visitors who kick off their shoes and stay awhile.  After all, those are the visitors who are likely to go from browsing to buying.

A website's "bounce rate" helps to determine whether visitors to the site tend to poke around or leave the site right away.  It's figured out by making a little fraction with the number of visitors who don't click past the first page of a site divided by the total number of visitors to the site.  Change that fraction to a percent, and you've got bounce rate.

For example, if your site has 100 visitors and 50 left after seeing your homepage, you have a 50% bounce rate.  If that really was your bounce rate, by the way, would indicate that you have some work to do on your homepage.  Ideally, you are looking for a bounce rate of around 35-40%. Because no matter what you do, there are a lot of tire-kickers in the world.

How Low Can Your Bounce Rate Go?

What can you do to help your bounce rate shrink?  It's all about the awesomeness level of your homepage.  The more that your homepage pulls people in, the lower your bounce rate will go.  And the more sales you will ultimately make.

You can help that bounce rate shape up by making some changes to your home page, like...

• Adding Call to Action Buttons.  Get your visitors hooked right away by incorporating a tempting button that's just begging to be clicked.
• Making Your Copy Convincing. The text on your homepage has to sell.  Make sure it makes your visitors thirsty for more.
• Offering Free Stuff.  It never hurts to offer a little incentive.  If you want people to dig deeper into the site, let them know that there is a treasure in there somewhere.  (You don't have to give away the store for this to work.  We're talking about a coupon.  A free sample.  Maybe free shipping.  It doesn't have to be a million dollar prize to catch someone's attention.)
• Keeping Things Interesting With a Blog. Blogs are really getting to be a big thing.  Make sure to include a prominently displayed link to yours on your home page.  You'll be surprised how many people you can hook in just by promising the opportunity to read your thoughts.

All right, that's it for now -- time to bounce.  (Sorry.  Couldn't resist.)