In order to understand and analyse the success of your website there are a variety of analytic tools to measure everything from time spent on the site to cost per engagement. Bounce rate is one area marketers can’t afford to ignore, as it measures how effectively your practice is being perceived by patients.
Bounce rate is the percentage of patients who leave after visiting only one page of your website. Why would these patients “bounce”? It’s probably an indication that your site isn’t providing the information the patient seeks, the site could be taking too long to load or that its too hard to navigate.
Bounce rates do however need to be looked at subjectively.
A high bounce rate can be indicative of a number of things but usually falls into one of two categories:
You’re acquiring the wrong kind of traffic to your page(s), or
You’re acquiring exactly the right kind of traffic to your page(s).
You may think this is strange if your providing the correct content, why would this be a negative outcome? If a user comes onto your site and finds exactly what they were looking for, why should they stay a moment longer or look around on other pages?
Websites that are excellent at solving information problems quickly often have high bounce rates. On the flip side, you have websites where it is critical to get your visitors to stay. You want them to spend time clicking around the site, perusing content which leads to them booking an appointment and converting.
In these instances high bounce rates are a conversion killer, and anything you can do to increase the time on site and number of pageviews will most likely directly correlate to your site’s success.
10 considerations for reducing your bounce rate:
1. Avoid pop-ups, autoplay audio and video as they can distract patients
2. Use intuitive navigation for important items
3. The speed of the website
4. Is the website mobile friendly
5. Color contrast as readers need something to keep them engaged
6. Messaging – Taglines are a great way to translate purpose
7. Offer a search functionality on your website
8. Open external links in new windows
9. Offer a helpful 404 redirect page for pages that wont load
10. Split up long posts as people have short attention spans
If you would like any further information then give Dental Design a call on: 01202 677 277