The Lookout: Insights on the PPC Marketplace

July 18, 2012

Top 5 Reasons Your Bounce Rate Is So High

by: Jill MacEachern

Pay per click advertising is a fantastic way to drive targeted traffic to your website fast.  You can target by behaviors, location, and device.  You can narrow your audience down to get the most for your PPC budget as well as track all data such as clicks, timing of clicks, bounce rate, and keywords.  However, there are of course many key factors you need to take into account in order to ensure your campaign will be as successful as possible.  The most common issue with PPC campaigns is the bounce rate, and here are the top five reasons your bounce rates are so high:

Landing Page

Where are you sending your click-throughs?  Are you sending them to an ad-heavy page, a cluttered page, or do you have a clear call to action?  The user clicked on your ad for a particular reason depending on what you put in your ad, they are interested in your product/service or they want to learn more about your company.  Either way, you want to direct the user to a landing page that is 100% related and connected to the original ad.  For example, if you have an ad for discounted tablets, you don't want to drive the user to a page for "Work From Home Jobs".  This will cause your bounce rates to spike because that's not why the user clicked on the ad.  See below for an example of a poorly design landing page.  Why?  Too many images and graphics that draw the user away from the call-to-action.  You don't want to be using too many images that are all competing for your visitor's attention.

Content

You need to ensure that where your driving your traffic, it's visually appealing to the user.  The user has taken the iniative to actually click on your ad, so now you have to keep them on your website for as long as possible with the hopes of getting a new customer.  If your design is poor, content is poorly written, and the information is irrelevant than the chances the user will actually remain on the page are very slim.  One very common mistake among PPC campaigns is trying to have keyword-rich content for search engine optimization purposes, however, if you have too many keywords the content will no longer make sense.  You also want to ensure the wording is easy to understand.  For example, if you are selling electronics, don't use large jargin words as that will confuse the visitor, you want to provide them information as easily as possible.

Pop Ups

Do not have ads popping up in the users face when they click-through your ad.  Doing this is not only a common spam-alert, but most users find it extremely annoying and will usually exit immediately.  Your main goal should be to drive traffic to your landing page in the hopes they'll find the content relevant to them; not to spam your visitors.

Hope these tips have helped you!  For more tips, strategies, and ideas on how to optimize your pay per click and display advertising campaigns, check back to LookSmart's Blog regularly.

TrackBacks

  • bmo online on 05/08/2012 9:19pm

    I am new to PPC and this article really helped me learning reasons of higer bounce rate. I think you will have any other post on this topic? Just added it for future reference. Thanks

  • seo firm on 12/08/2012 10:13pm

    I am writing a term paper on bounce rate and came across your post which was very helpful. Do you know where I can find more information about this?

  • Chris K. Johnson on 12/08/2012 10:40pm

    Pay per click is one of my favorite area in internet marketing. I think its important for everyone to understand the bounce rate, higher the rate shows site content has some issues. Thanks

  • gain weight on 19/08/2012 2:14pm

    I am new to PPC and trying to learn basic rules for increasing conversion rates. I wasn't aware of the fact that bounce rate is directly related with conversion rates. Thanks for another informative post.

  • buy plus one on 25/08/2012 5:12am

    Landing Page and Pop ups play an important role in increasing bounce rate. I agree that content is directly related with bounce rate. Detailed note on bounce rate, I am glad to find it, thanks for enhancing my knowledge.

  • youtube downloader mac on 14/09/2012 5:47am

    Thanks for another nice post about CTR rate. Keep sharing such ideas in the future as well. This was actually what I was looking for, and I am glad to came here! Thanks for sharing the such information with us

  • sell silver beverly hills on 02/10/2012 3:22pm

    Your post contains useful information about Bounce rate and CPC as I am working on a college project. Thank you posting relative information and its now becoming easier to complete this topic.

  • plastic cards on 04/10/2012 4:45am

    I am preparing a college paper for importance of Bounce Rate in CPC campaigns and collecting information on this topic. Your post is one of the better that I have read. Thank you for putting this information into one site.

  • marketing web montreal on 20/10/2012 4:59pm

    There are so many different aspects when it comes to Bounce Rate. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge on some basic issues related to higher bounce rates.

  • nyc chiropractor on 16/11/2012 1:52pm

    Bounce rate is an important for all PPC campaigns. I am glad to find very useful point related to higher bounce rate, I will be reading rest of the posts soon. Thanks

  • Justin Paul on 18/11/2012 7:33am

    Bounce rate is an important issue in Pay-Per-Click advertising and many new entrants really face difficult situation in understand in it. I am really to find another good read. Thanks

  • SEO company on 29/11/2012 2:34pm

    I think hiring a web designer to take a forensic look at your site and to clean up any usability and navigation problems that are asking people to leave.

  • Languedoc Property for Sale on 04/12/2012 3:29pm

    I think if website doesn’t give visitors the sense that they are moving toward the outcome, they will bounce. Overall navigation, design, content must all work together to communicate that you offer what visitors are looking for. Thanks

  • Coupons Hunt on 02/04/2013 9:31am

    I am writing a research paper and collecting information on this topic. Your post is one of the better that I have read. Thank you for putting this information into one location.

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