Guide To Bounce Rates On Shopify
Shopify store owners may not have a lot of background in website analytics, and understanding 'Bounce rates' can get very confusing! In this article we are going to look at where to find bounce rate for Shopify & how you can reduce it for your store.
With so many metrics available, it's difficult to know what to pay attention to, and what to ignore. In this Guide to Bounce Rates on Shopify, we’re going to explain one of the most important metrics that can clue you in on how your online store is doing- as well as what you can do to improve it!
Bounce rates will often tell you just how well-designed your Shopify store is, and how relevant it is to the people landing in your store.
What is Bounce Rate?
Bounce rate is a metric used by Google Analytics, a service that tracks website traffic. For an e-commerce site like Shopify, the bounce rate can be argued as one of the most important metrics to watch.
The bounce rate shows what percentage of visitors to a website will open the page, and then not interact with it at all. They will leave the website (or “bounce” from it) before clicking any links.
Obviously, a visitor coming to your store and not interacting with you, and therefore not purchasing a product from your store - is bad for business.
Therefore, the lower the bounce rate you have, the better! A low bounce rate is a good indication of a well-designed Shopify store.
Common reasons for a high Shopify bounce rate include
- The stores takes too long to load
- Visitors finding the navigation too tricky
- Visitors finding the look and layout of your store unappealing
- Visitors finding the store to be not what they expected when they clicked the link from Google or other sources
A good bounce rate to shoot for when it comes to Shopify stores is 30-60%. Don’t expect to achieve any rates much lower than that, as these are extremely rare.
If your bounce rate is 80% or higher, you can be sure there is an issue that needs addressing. In the sections below, we’ll get into the potential causes of high bounce rates.
How Does Shopify Calculate Bounce Rate?
Shopify calculates the bounce rate as the number of sessions divided by the number that converts to sales over a set period of time.
The bounce rate you will see on the Shopify site and through Google Analytics will differ as they use their own separate metrics.
Steps To Check Your Bounce Rate On Shopify:
- Log in to Shopify
- Under your profile, look for "Reports" under analytics
- Click on "Sessions over time" under "Acquisition"
- Select the start and end dates for the period you want to see the bounce rate for
- Scroll down and click on "Edit Columns"
- A drop-down menu should appear, where you can then select “Bounce Rate”
- You can now see the bounce rate percentage
How To Check Your Bounce Rate On Google Analytics
- Sign into Google Analytics
- Select the Shopify store you wish to view
- Go to "Audience Overview"
- Select "Bounce Rates"
- You can see the bounce rates for the entire store here
- Select "Behavior"
- Select "All Pages" from the drop-down
- Now, you should be able to see bounce rates from individual pages on the site
What Are the Benefits Of a Low Bounce Rate?
Better Engagement
A lower bounce rate means your visitor is engaging more with your store.
They are interested in the products you have to offer them and are looking at more products and collections. For an e-commerce store, it will also mean a better chance of sales.
SEO
A low bounce rate will boost your SEO. Search engines now consider the usefulness of a website by how much engagement they receive.
If they see people find the website and quickly close it, they understand this as the content not being relevant or of quality.
This means a website with a lower bounce rate will rank higher than one with a high bounce rate- all other things being equal.
Therefore, if your store has content that people will likely interact with- even if it doesn't mean they purchase anything- it will probably help your website succeed in the long run!
Therefore, adding tips, articles, or blogs that are relevant to your audience is sure to help.
What Causes High Bounce Rates On Shopify?
Here are some of the major factors that can result in users bouncing from your store:
Your Website Content Is Unappealing
With an e-commerce store, a potential customer will instantly close the tab and continue searching if the products shown don’t look like what they were looking for.
Poor User Experience Optimization
One of the biggest issues with online stores that will turn customers away immediately is difficult navigation.
Your visitors should have to spend next to no time figuring their way around your site - particularly when adding an item to the shopping cart and checking out!
Online shoppers may quickly get frustrated with user-unfriendly sites, and go elsewhere.
Website Technical Errors
Any technical errors on your website can turn shoppers off instantly.
Page load errors, checkout issues, or any potential security issues are a no-go. Unfortunately, most visitors will close the site and move on, leaving you clueless about the issue.
Slow Page Speed
Users are notoriously impatient.
In this age of instant gratification, they likely will lose interest and look elsewhere if a website doesn't load at the click of a button!
With so much content at their fingertips, most people aren't going to wait around. A website should be optimized to load in less than one second- studies have shown that even three seconds is enough to put someone off.
How To Reduce The Bounce Rate Of Your Shopify Store
Here are a few of the most effective methods in which to reduce bounce rates:
1. Ensure that you’re Targeting the Right Audience
Your marketing strategy should target individuals that will be highly interested in your product.
This can include optimizing for the most relevant keywords, instead of overreaching or marketing on websites your target audience is unlikely to visit.
2. Focus On Personalization
Think about who your target audience is, and focus the website's look to appeal to them!
If you want to sell to up-market sophisticated women, your website should be modern and sleek.
On the other hand, a background of trees or mountains may help to make customers feel more at home if you are selling to outdoorsy folk.
3. Fix Your Site Speed
One of the best things you can do is to get your site loading fast.
Super fast.
The first thing the visitor will notice is how fast your website opens. If it's slow, they may never even see your site!It doesn't matter how good it is.
Aim for a loading speed of half a second to three seconds; the quicker, the better.
4. Create A Good User Experience
If visitors open a website and see a cluttered mess, they are likely to leave instantly.
Think of the type of navigation visitors will be used to. Someone coming to a website on a one-off basis doesn't want to learn a new navigation method- so keep it simple!
The home page should be neat and straightforward and entice the visitor to explore further. Customers should also easily be able to return to the home page from any page.
5. Build Trust With Your Website Visitors And Customers
Including reviews from a third-party site can help customers trust you are legit.
Posting reviews directly to your website, which you or your webmaster controls, is suspicious. It's also questionable if reviews are only positive!
Having some negative reviews is expected, as long as the percentage isn't too high. They can actually give the shopper trust that you aren't misleading them.
6. Fix Your Technical Errors Regularly
You should regularly check your website for errors, and promptly fix any issues.
Do not rely on visitors telling you about an issue, as it's unlikely to happen. If you notice an increase in your bounce rate, you should immediately check that no technical issues are driving away visitors.
Wrapping Up
You should constantly be paying close attention to the bounce rate of your Shopify store.
If the bounce rate is high for your Shopify store, make sure to look into the possible issues as we've discussed above and work to fix these immediately!
Lowering your bounce rate will mean people are engaging more with your store, which will likely lead to more paying customers.
Reducing the bounce rate will also make you likely to land higher up in search results - which is always a good thing in terms of increased viewers and higher potential sales.