What to Consider When Analyzing Your Website Exit Rates
The exit rate for a website is the number of page-views it received during its last session. In simple terms, it regards how often a page is the last page a person visits before leaving the website. Users need to leave your website at one point – the important factors for your company to understand are, who’s leaving, what page they’re exiting from, and why they’ve decided to go elsewhere.
- Who’s leaving?
Looking into aggregate data as a way to analyze exit rates is a complicated business. Companies would need to segment their audience into different sections before they can understand which users are exiting, why they’re leaving, and whether it’s a bad thing. For instance, you may have a great deal of traffic from people who would like a career in your company. The behavior and objectives of these browsers are significantly different from that of a potential customer.
- What type of Page?
As people do need to leave your website at some point, you want that exit to be made when your users have gotten the information that they came or. Evaluate the exit rate for contact and content download pages and remember, once someone has completed a form or action, they have accomplished what they needed to do with your website. However, if you’re getting high exit rates on your checkout page, there may be a problem.
- Is the Page Valuable?
A higher than usual exit rate could indicate that your audience is not pleased with whatever they find on your page. This might be because you’re offering low-quality content, or because you have broken links, features or images. Sometimes, the information that you have on your website may be outdated and no longer relevant. Of course, your content can sometimes provide the information a user wants, and they will still leave. For example, if you’re providing opening times for a local restaurant on a specific page, users do not have to stay on that page once they have gotten the information they need.
- Is Your Call To Action Compelling?
Often, when browsing the internet, consumers will take whichever path is easiest for them. Unless you provide an incredibly easy and obvious path for your audience to follow, then they may be inclined to leave. One way to keep your visitors for longer is to give them a reason to stay. People might not be itching to purchase on their first visit to your product page, but you can provide a call to action which encourages them to subscribe to your newsletter or follow your business on Facebook.
Conclusion
The truth is, assessing exit rate by itself will not do much in telling you whether your website is up to scratch. If you want to better understand how well your website is really working, you’ll need to look at the bigger picture. Identify what the goal of your business is, and find a way to connect this with your audience, and their needs.
