Bounce Rates: What do they mean for your competition website?
The bounce rate is one of the most important pieces of data you can collect for your competition website. It is the quickest way to understand which pages are working, and which ones aren’t. Bounce rates can also help you to spot any technical issues with your site.
What is a bounce rate?
A bounce rate shows the percentage of your site’s visitors that leave after only viewing one page on your site.
If your site is connected with Google Analytics, you can check your bounce rate under Audience > Overview. This will show your site’s overall bounce rate.
Your site will also have multiple bounce rates for each page. By looking at the bounce rate for individual pages, you can get a better idea of how that page is performing.
You can also look at your bounce rate across browsers and different devices (i.e. desktop, mobile, tablet). This is important for making sure people can easily access your site and view your competitions – which means more customers!
What is a good bounce rate?
Before we get into what makes a good or bad bounce rate, it’s important to be aware of the factors which influence it. “Good” bounce rates vary from site to site, depending on the type of business or industry, as well as the type of device visitors are using. Here are some of the factors most relevant to competition sites.
Your traffic’s sources
People who come from Google’s (or another search engine) search results often bounce less than those being directed from social media or paid channels. This is often to do with the frame of mind your visitors are in. People using search engines tend to be looking for something related to what you offer (in this case, competitions), while people using social media may have spotted your site in their newsfeed and are often just curious.
The type of traffic you are attracting
While some people are happy to enter a competition as soon as they discover a new site, others might prefer to research and make comparisons with similar competition businesses before spending money.
Your site’s layout and design
Sites that are confusing and difficult to navigate, look old-fashioned or unprofessional, tend to have higher bounce rates than clean, easy-to-use and mobile-friendly sites. Your site’s appearance forms a visitor’s first impression of your company. So it’s important to create a good one or they will leave before you can convince them to enter any of your competitions – no matter how great your prizes are!
What is the average bounce rate?
According to experts, most bounce rates fall between 26% and 70%. This makes the average bounce rate around 45-50%. Take a look at our chart below for a breakdown of bounce rate performance.
Under 20%
If your bounce rate is under 20%, it is highly likely that analytics has not been correctly integrated on your competition website. Issues include:
- Analytics code has been duplicated
- Event tracking errors
- Third-party add-ons affecting your data
Over 90%
This can also be caused by incorrect analytics set-up, as well as issues with your site which we’ll discuss in more detail in the next section.
Why your website can have a high bounce rate
As well as the influencing factors we discussed earlier on in the post, here are some common reasons why people bounce from sites.
Slow site speed
Your site should load as fast as possible. Most people won’t wait longer than 3 seconds for a page to load before giving up. They expect a site to load even faster on mobile devices.
Self-sufficient content
This is when a visitor has gotten everything they are looking for from a page on your site. You don’t want this to happen when people are landing on your home page. Instead, they should be browsing your competition pages.
Misleading title tag and meta description
When people spot your site in search engines, you should make it clear you’re a competition business to only attract clicks from people who are interested. Any other traffic would be a waste of your time and effort.
Technical error
This is when your site is returning a 404, blank page or not loading properly.
Bad link from another site
You could be getting traffic from another site with misleading context. If your site is connected to Google Search Console, you’ll be able to use the Links report to check which sites are linking to yours.
Low quality content and design
As we touched on in a previous section, if your website looks low-quality, it creates a poor first impression with visitors. A professional-looking site is especially important for competition businesses as it signals to new customers that the business is trustworthy.
Poor user experience
As well as looking professional, competition businesses need to consider their customers’ experience when they visit their site. Too many ads, pop-ups, pushy subscribe notifications and confusing navigation are just some of the things which can put a visitor off exploring more of your site.
Page isn’t mobile friendly
Your site might look great on a desktop, but if it looks bad or doesn’t perform as expected across all devices, you’ll lose out on potential customers accessing your site from their mobiles.
