Do you know what your bounce rate is? You should know that number, because having too high of a bounce rate will destroy your chances of having success on Google Ads.
What Is A Bounce?
A bounce is when someone comes to your website, and then quickly leaves without viewing any other pages or spending any meaningful time on your website. With Google Ads specifically, it’s when someone clicks on your ad, lands on your website, isn’t interested in what they see, and then bounces back to Google and continues their search for a different website that can solve their problem.
Do you see the problem there? You pay for the click, but the person doing the click bounces off your website instantly and you don’t have a chance at them becoming a lead and a possible client or customer. Money goes out the door, nothing comes back in. Yikes.
While bounces are bad, they’re also inevitable. I don’t care if you have the best keyword, the best ad, the best website, and the best product or service, sometimes people are just going to bounce. It happens. Accepting that a percentage of your Google Ads traffic will bounce is the sign of a professional advertiser. You learn to live with it, and it’s just part of the game. Why? I don’t know, but I can tell you that no matter what, some of your traffic will always bounce. What separates winners from losers is the question of how much. How much of your paid search traffic bounces? And at what rate do they bounce?
What’s A Good Bounce Rate?
If you’re getting a bounce rate from your Google Ads search traffic that’s close to your organic search traffic, that’s a good sign. And I’d say for paid search, anything above 80% is going to worry me. As you get close to 90% and above, now I’m really worried. That’s a sign that either the website is bad, or the kinds of searches you’re showing up on and getting clicks from are not what you should be going for. On the other hand, if you can get that bounce rate down near 60%, I like that, and with anything under 50%, I’d say you’re in good shape.
How To Improve Your Bounce Rate
If you want to get your bounce rate down, and we all should, you have to focus on three factors:
- The search the user did when they saw and clicked on your ad
- Your ad copy
- Your landing page
If you’re not managing your keywords, match types, and negative keywords correctly, then you could be showing up on irrelevant searches and that non-relevant traffic won’t like what they see on your website and they’ll bounce off at a high rate. So you want to get your keywords and search terms right. Regarding ad copy, if your ad promises something that’s different than your website, that’ll also lead to a high bounce rate. And if your website has problems, like slow speeds or uninteresting or irrelevant content, then that’ll also lead to a high bounce rate.
Low bounce rates lead to more chances at getting conversions. And more conversions lead to more new business. To lower your bounce rate, focus on three things. Make sure you’re showing up on relevant searches. Make sure your ad copy is both relevant to the search and also accurately portrays what’s on the other side of that click, which is your website. And make sure your website is fast, easy to understand and to navigate, and offers relevant, interesting content that will help your search traffic solve their problems and accomplish their goals.
A Little Goes A Long Way
Don’t forget the power of improving your bounce rate just a little bit. If your bounce rate is 75% and you get it down to 65%, and you get 20 clicks a day, over the course of a year, that’s over 700 more users each year who are sticking around on your website for a meaningful period of time and give you a chance at winning their business. Little improvements add up with PPC, and focusing on and improving your bounce rate is a way to put the odds in your favor and give yourself a better chance at running a profitable Google Ads campaign.
