Is your website working for you the way it should be? A website should be a bastion of the brand, business, or person it represents. If visitors aren’t treated to an excellent user experience at every click, then you may need to rethink some things about your website.
How can you tell if you’ve got a good site? There are many things you can look out for. One really useful way is to analyze the exit rate of your site.
If you’d like to learn how to examine and improve your site’s exit rate, read on for everything you need to know.
What Is a Website Exit Rate?
Many people mistakenly think the exit rate and bounce rate of a website are the same thing. They are similar, but there is an important distinction.
When someone bounces off a page on your site, it means they have entered, not interacted with your site at all, and then left.
The exit rate, on the other hand, refers only to the point at which a site visitor leaves your site.
For a more detailed description of these definitions, see this handy post from Google.
It’s important to note that a high exit rate is not necessarily a bad thing, though it can be an indication of a problem with your site. The context of the page could also be the reason an exit rate is high.
You can use Google Analytics to see what both your bounce rate and your exit rate are. Once you’ve established what your exit rate is, you can go about improving it.
Reduce Your Website’s Exit Rate
Of course, the action you need to take will depend on what the issue that’s causing your high exit rate is. It’s possible you may need a complete overhaul. High exit rates could be an indication you need to update your site.
If you’d rather start small, here are a few steps that should help.
A/B Test
One of the easiest ways to see how you can possibly improve your site is to A/B test. This simple process involves creating different versions of the same web page, and analyzing bounce and exit rates for each, to see which people respond to best.
Talk to Your Users
Who better to tell you about what’s not working about your website than its users? Asking users to complete a short survey about why they’re leaving your site can help you to identify pain points or issues that you may have previously missed.
Make Your Pages Readable
One simple way to improve your site is to optimize your pages for readability. A big block of text and too many ads can be offputting. Make your content attractive and easy to read.
Check Out Your Page Load Speed
The slower your page loads, the less likely your users will be to stick around. A few simple things you can do to speed up your page load time are to remove excessive ads and plugins and make sure images and video files aren’t too large.
Optimize for Mobile
These days, pretty much everyone has a smartphone, and as a result, a lot of web browsing is done from mobiles. Make sure your website is optimized for mobile, or you’re excluding a large chunk of your site visitors.
Make Your Website Great to Reduce Your Exit Rate
You might have already noticed, all of these tips have one thing in common. Each one has the user at its core.
At the end of the day, the number one thing you can do in order to reduce your site’s bounce and exit rate is to always write and design with your user in mind.
For more industry insights, tips, and hints on how to ensure your site’s doing the very best job it can be, check out the rest of our content.