Once when Julius Caesar spoke to the Roman senate about a particular conquest, he pithily stated, “Veni, vidi, vici.” — I came, I saw, I conquered.
For retailers promoting sales using their websites, you want your visitors to have a similar experience: They came, they saw, and they bought!
All too often, though, visitors land on one page of your site and don’t go on to any other. That’s called a “bounce.”
You can review your bounce rate in your Google Analytics reports for free or with another metric gathering system.
There are two areas involving SEO copywriting that will help you to lower your bounce rate.
• One is to rewrite the copy on important pages, and don’t forget to rewrite their respective title and description tags. Use a few keywords for each page and also in the tags. The results will be that your pages will attract more targeted and qualified prospects.
• The second task is to write and arrange the content so that it guides the visitor into taking a “next step” which, most often, is clicking to another web page.
As you work to improve your website, periodically check your bounce rate to see if it’s trending downward. If it is, then you are on the right track to making more sales through an effective website. (But do allow for seasonal differences.)
By the way, you will never have a 0% bounce rate. There will always be folks who stumble onto your website who have absolutely no desire for your product. That’s not a problem; it’s just the nature of the Web.
Easy Web Tip #27: Your bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who land on a page of your site and then don’t move on to any other page. As you improve your website, your bounce rate will go lower and you’ll see better results.
