Reducing the bounce rate from your dental website
What is “bounce rate” and what can I do to minimise it?
Bounce rate is used to measure the number of visitors to your website who only view a single page i.e. they do not progress further through the site. This is a very important metric as it serves as a high-level performance indicator for the quality of the page – high bounce rate typically implies that the page is not meeting the requirements of the viewer.
So exactly how do we measure bounce rate and then reduce it?
Web page quality and user experience
Research suggests that you have approximately 4 seconds to grab the attention of a website visitor – first impressions really count. The slightest distractions will interrupt this process resulting in your user clicking off and heading elsewhere. A high bounce rate usually indicates that something is wrong with your landing page and rather than encouraging your potential customer to interact with you, has actually driven them elsewhere – quite possibly to your competitor’s website.
Clearly it is important to ensure that your landing page layout is reviewed carefully at the dental website design stage and it’s ongoing bounce rate monitored carefully to ensure that it continues to perform.
Lower Bounce Rate = Good Higher Bounce Rate = Bad
Factors that affect bounce rate
Aesthetics and layout
We we will cover this in more detail in a dedicated article soon but suffice to say that if your dental website needs updating and simply looks poor, it will not be attractive to visitors. However, modern websites which have a poor layout or other undesirable features can also suffer with high bounce rate.
Load time
Slow loading pages are a real problem. Users hate them and Google does too. Users are impatient and will not hang around whilst slow web pages load up. Google also uses page load speed in its ranking algorithm and penalises pages that are not optimised. There are numerous ways to improve the load time of a web page including removal of unnecessary content, compressing images and optimising coding. Professional dental website designers will always check these factors before delivering a website to the client.
Cluttered and confusing content
Website users are very fickle and want to find the information they are looking for very quickly. They scan web pages and move on rapidly if they don’t find what they need in a few seconds. Consequently your content and page layout must cater for this type of interaction. Rafts of dull text content will have them moving on very quickly – so avoid information overload unless the page really is designed to provide comprehensive detail. An example of this may be an internal information pages that details a dental treatment process – here it may be valid to add more comprehensive date but it’s best avoided with the pages that your users will find when they first access your website.
No clear call to action (CTA)
A call-to-action is a clear signal designed to prompt users to proceed further into your marketing funnel, for example, sign-up to your email list, register for a consultation etc. Essentially it is a clear signal to “act now”. These are typically buttons or graphics that are placed prominently and designed to stand-out from the surrounding page content. Websites with poor CTAs often suffer from high bounce rates.
Confusing navigation
Mystery navigation is still all too prevalent on the web, usually where the website builder has failed to assess usability from the average user’s perspective. Navigation should be simple, clear and consistent; if it’s not expect your potential new patients to navigate elsewhere!
Flat website structure
A flat dental website structure or architecture means that users don’t have to navigate five levels deep to get to the inner content. All the key information should be no more than two clicks away and preferably one.
Pop-ups, adverts, streaming music and auto-play videos
I don’t need to say too much about these! We all get thoroughly frustrated by websites that hit you with adverts, pop-ups, videos and music that jump out as soon as you enter. You might think that some of this is attractive but trust me that the rest of the Internet world doesn’t – so please refrain. A high quality video is an excellent web marketing tool but give the user the option to switch it on and off. If you must have music, make sure the “off” button is prominent.
Measuring a web page’s bounce rate
Google Analytics is free and offers huge amounts of website performance data, including bounce rate. Review this regularly to monitor the performance of your key pages.
What is a high bounce rate?
A typical dental website will see pages with bounce rates varying between 35 – 50%. Anything above this and you should be speaking to you web marketing team to review. Over time, bounce rates should be driven down as the page optimisation is reviewed and improved.
Mobile traffic and bounce rates
This is often neglected but extremely important, particularly now that mobile represents such a high proportion of all web traffic (currently averaging > 30%). Where mobile traffic directs to a website that is not mobile optimised, bounce rate is invariably high; typically well in excess of 60%. If you need to justify the extra budget for a mobile website or for a new responsive design, please remember those bounce statistics.
Summary
Bounce rate is a key metric for indicating the performance of a web page – low bounce is good, high bounce is bad. Tools such as Google Analytics should be used to monitor your website bounce rates regularly and corrective action taken to drive bounce down.
If you are worried that your website is delivering low conversions and suspect that it may have high bounce rates, please call the Dental Media team on 01332 672548 for no-obligation advice and a complimentary review.