Many eCommerce stores are struggling to stay in business because people find them but don’t buy anything. Unfortunately, your website will be in the same position as long as you can’t turn your visitors into customers. If you think that even though you spend money on advertising and have a nice website, people still leave your page, you need to keep reading. We’re here to help you figure out what your eCommerce bounce rate means and how to improve it. In order to improve the eCommerce bounce rate of your store, you need to know what it is. This article will give you 15 ways to improve the performance of your eCommerce website and the number of people who leave it without buying anything.
What is the bounce rate, and why does it matter?
When someone visits your website but doesn’t look at any other pages besides the landing page, we say they “bounced.” If you’ve done a good job of getting people to your website, you want them to stay as long as possible. Since the average eCommerce bounce rate is a ratio, the best way to explain it is to say how many people leave the site after just one visit for every 100 visitors. For example, if you have 1,000 visitors to your page and 634 of them leave without going to any other pages, your bounce rate is (634/1000)x100 = 63.4%.
Most eCommerce analytics programmes or the back end of your site will give you this number. This can be used as a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for your store to analyse, evaluate, and keep an eye on the traffic. It’s hard to say what the best average eCommerce bounce rate is, so it’s better to use a time frame as a guide. It’s between 20% and 45% for eCommerce sites. Keeping these in mind, let’s look at some ways to lower your eCommerce bounce rate. If you use the tips below, you will definitely increase the time people spend on your site and the number of people who buy from you.
Responsive design
With the number of people using mobile devices growing all the time, it became very important to make sure your site worked well on these devices. Not only to make the user experience better, but also to keep people on your site for longer. It is proven that desktop users are less likely to bounce than those who view your store on mobile. Tablets are about where they should be. People who use smartphones and tablets are more likely to leave your page to open another app. For this reason, you might also want to consider creating mobile-specific landing pages or an app for your business.
Speed is slowed down.
The more we use the internet to look around and talk to other people, the less we can stand waiting for pages to load. This is the first and foremost important factor when visiting a website. If your visitors have to wait more than a few seconds, the number of people who leave your site will go up with each second. Stats show that 72% more people leave slow-loading sites than fast-loading ones. Also, a website that loads quickly can help you get a higher ranking in search engines.
There are several ways to speed up a site. First, you should try to speed up the time it takes for your server to respond. This can be done by looking for and getting rid of problems like low memory, slow routing, and slow database queries. Second, make sure the size of your images is right. Images that are bigger than they need to be can also make your website take longer to load. And finally, try to remove parts of your HTML and CSS code that you aren’t using. This can also make a huge difference in how your visitors feel.
Using the right pop-up modal boxes is important.
On the one hand, pop-up modal boxes can make more people leave your site. On the other hand, they can make more people stay on your site. It is very important to know when to use pop-ups and what kind to use. If it pops up too soon and asks for feedback from a visitor, it might be annoying for them. But if it pops up too late, your customer is likely to wander off to another website already. But the right timing and a good offer can not only keep people in your eCommerce store, but they could also turn them into customers. The last thing you should do is make sure these pop-ups are easy to close. We all know that being unable to close a modal box is the most annoying thing that can happen. This is important for all types of devices, so make sure you also optimise for mobile.
Keep a clear head.
If your home page or landing page has a lot of information on it, it can be a distraction and cause your eCommerce bounce rate to go up. Your customers will get a better idea of what your business is about when they see a simple design and few options. Once you have their attention, they are more likely to stay on your website and click through to other pages as well.
Turn off autoplay on videos
Videos are a great way to keep people on your website longer and keep them interested. If a video is well made and speaks to your visitors, they are likely to watch at least part of it, if not the whole thing. This could make them stay on your site longer. But watch out! If you don’t turn off the “autoplay” feature, your video will play even if your visitors don’t want it to. Sadly, this can easily make them mad and make them leave right away.
It must be easy to get around.
You will need some intuition to figure out how people want to move around on a page. But luckily, there are ways to improve the user experience that will work every time. Make a menu that stands out and is easy to use. It can be at the top of the page or on the left. Make sure it stays there, so that people don’t have to scroll all the way up to find pages. Make these into a “hamburger menu” so they look good on mobile devices and don’t get in the way of your content. Try out a few different layouts because one might work better for you than the others. Also, don’t forget to make a site map for the page’s bottom. Here, you can link to all the important and useful pages so that they are easy to find.
Good design as a sign of trustworthiness
People are quick to judge eCommerce websites based on how they look. This can have a big effect on how people think of you as a trustworthy source. Invest in a clean, simple design to make people more likely to trust your business. Also, don’t forget to make sure that each page is the same. Make sure that your website has the same colour scheme and fonts everywhere. This will help make sure that people take your business and you as a seller seriously.
Make it easy to search
One of the most common reasons why people leave an eCommerce site quickly is that they can’t find what they’re looking for. One way to make searching easy is to make sure your search bar is as visible as possible. It must be easy for people to find and see at first glance. Also, make sure the search bar is the right size. When searching for a longer keyword, not being able to see all of the characters can make it hard to review or change a query. But these rules are not enough on their own. The most important thing is that when a customer searches on your website, the right search results will always come up.
Excellent product pages
Product pages are the most important part of an eCommerce site, so you want to make sure they are set up well. First and foremost, you need professional photos that show off your products in the best way possible. The most important information about the item should come next, at the top of the page, so that your customers don’t have to look for it. Try to include as much extra information as you can, such as measurements, specifications, and the materials used. Lastly, make sure that adding an item to the cart is easy for your visitors by giving them a button that stands out.
Always have a Frequently Asked Questions page.
A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page is useful for many reasons, and it can also help reduce the number of people who leave an eCommerce site without buying anything. Having all the information your visitors need at their fingertips can not only help them stay on your site longer, but it can also help them convert. Also, a frequently updated FAQs page can boost your credibility and clear up any misunderstandings that might happen in the future.
Provide customer service through live chat.
If you want to step up your customer service, you should try adding a live chat to your website. Since you can’t answer questions all day and night, you might want to try a chatbot first. But make sure you put in all the questions you can think of and the answers. You might be surprised by some of the questions that customers ask, so be ready for anything. If you have a customer service team, make sure they know what they are doing. They will be the voice of your brand. Representatives can not only turn visitors around and turn them into customers, but they can also lower the number of people who leave your site right away.
Make use of heat maps
Heat maps let you see what people look at and click on on your website. There are two kinds of heat maps you might want to use: scroll maps and click maps.
On the one hand, you can put scroll maps on your home page or landing page if you have a high bounce rate. The part of your page that a visitor sees as soon as they land on it is called “above the fold.” Since not all screens are the same size, you should start by keeping an eye on the average fold line. This part of your website should have the most important information for your customer. If you can get their attention, you’ll see them scrolling down your page or clicking on other links on your site.
Click maps, on the other hand, will show you where your visitors click on a given page. Those that are moving around clearly aren’t clicking on anything. But with this method, you can tell if they might be confused by your website’s design and try to click on things that can’t be clicked. This can help you make your website even better in terms of how it looks and how easy it is to use.
Get rid of usability problems
You must test your website after every change to make sure there are no problems with how it works. These can be broken drop-down menus, 404 errors, broken links, or problems with how responsive your site is on mobile devices. Such problems are likely to make people leave your website, so it’s important that it works well. You can figure out how easy something is to use by watching recorded sessions of people using high-bounce-rate pages. You’ll be able to see the exact step or time when people decide to leave your page, which will make it easy to fix.
Keep an eye on the traffic from your paid ads.
You should always look at the bounce rate of your paid ads and see how well they are doing. Whether it’s a shopping campaign, a paid search result, or an ad on social media, it could bring in visitors who don’t stick around for long. Find out where most of your bounces are coming from and change your strategy. Check to see if the keywords people are using to find your site match up with what they find on your landing page. Also, check to see if your landing page visitors are really finding what they are looking for. Lastly, make sure the content of your ads matches the content of the landing pages they send people to.
Copywriting that wins
Make sure that the copy on your page is informative, easy to understand, and convincing. This will help you get your visitors to do what you want them to do next. They will be more likely to do what you want, whether it’s going to another page on your site, adding something to their cart, or signing up for your newsletter. You can also increase your conversion rate by writing clear copy that answers all the important questions. If your copy is bad, it won’t keep people on your site, and you risk having a higher bounce rate.
Conclusion
No matter how low your website’s eCommerce bounce rate is, you should always try to get it even lower. Going through all of the above ideas could be a good way to start figuring out where you are doing well and where you need to improve. The goal is to make people feel like they can find what they need on your website. This will not only turn your visitors into customers, but it could also make them come back to your site again and again. And as we all know, a business’s most valuable assets are its loyal customers who come back again and again.
