Are you worried about your high bounce rate? It’s a common misunderstanding (especially among writers) that a higher bounce rate means your website content is not good enough.
Truth is, bounce rate is just a content marketing metric that increases when your visitors don’t visit another page from your website and just close the current one. And it is absolutely fine for a visitor to look for something, find that something in your content, read that content, and then leave your website.
Not exactly what you were hoping for..?
Yes, ideally, a webmaster would appreciate extra user engagement. It would be better if your visitors checked more pages, especially if you offer online services or sell and hope that your readers will eventually end up in your “Order” page.
Still, there is nothing wrong with a high bounce rate!
Take me for example. Before I start writing, I always research similar topics. I found pretty good articles that I read and enjoyed and also found pretty bad articles that I didn’t finish reading. My behavior as a visitor was the same, I closed the page when I finished reading. The difference is that I spent more time with the articles that I liked.
You see, my intention was only to find worthy material. I was never interested in buying products, subscribing to anyone, etc. It was a “Veni, vidi, vici” thing. Well, probably without the conquering part, not just yet…
This is the complete opposite of Avinash Kaushik’s “I came, I puked, I left,” which he used to describe what a bounce rate is. Well, not exactly, Mr. Kaushik, not every time…
Converting readers into customers vs brand awareness
If my goal as a webmaster/website content writer is to move the users through the funnel and drive leads, possibly convert them to my products, then a high bounce rate should concern me. But just to some extent. Like I said, just because my intention was only research (meaning I have 0 interest in buying or subscribing to anything else offered in the websites I visited), it doesn’t make those articles bad. It doesn’t mean that these webmasters are bad at converting customers, either.
It just means that I found good content via Google search. It also means that I might have remembered their brand names. It also means that if I see that brand name again, I will most likely recognize it and prefer to read that same brand’s content first.
Did you find this blog interesting? Whether you check the other blog posts or not, I will appreciate it if you share your opinion. I’m open for discussion – the comment section is here, below on the same page…
