What is ‘Bounce Rate’ and What Should I Do About It?

Your golf course has a website. You want golfers to visit your site and do something, probably book a tee time or fill out a form to learn more about membership or hosting an event.

But not every visitor does that. Some of them get to your site and they don’t click on anything. They just leave your site and go somewhere else in the internet ocean (probably a competitor’s website).

These are called ‘bounces.’

Bоunсе rаtе iѕ a реrсеntаgе оf ѕinglе-раgе ѕеѕѕiоnѕ оn уоur website.

Simply put, it represents thе реrсеntаgе оf реорlе who ореn only оnе page оn уоur website, dоn’t click on аnуthing, аnd mоvе оn.

In order to measure the bounce rate, you should have Google Analytics installed on your site. (It’s free and easy to do and you website designer can do it for you in a matter of minutes.)

High bounce rate is crushing to a business. Think about it this way. People came to your website because they are interested in something, maybe even an ad you put our or a social media post you made.

Here are some reasons people ‘bounce’ from your site.

Content and Design Issues

As the saying goes, “content is king.” Your website must have concise and descriptive text that accomplishes two goals: 1. Lets your visitor know they’re in the right place to find what they’re looking for – a great golf course and 2. Guides them to their goal – booking a tee time.

The text on your site must be concise, effective, and laid out well for mobile consumption.

Mobile Optimization Issues

Bounces occur often when a visitor using a mobile device like an iPhone lands on your site only to be greeted by microscopic text and slow-loading photos. It’s too easy for visitors to hit the back button (or swipe back) and move on to the next search result.

Over half of internet traffic comes from mobile devices now. That number is expected to hit 80% in 2018.

Greet your visitors with a mobile-optimized website and your bounce rate will improve.

No Clear Call-To-Action

People like things to be instant and easy online. Put a big button front-and-center that guides your visitor toward their goal. Bounce rates are higher on websites that make it difficult for visitors to figure out what they’re supposed to do when they get there.

Page Load time

This is a big one. If your visitors get tired waiting for your slow website to load, they’re likely to hit the back button and move on to a competitor’s site. These count toward your bounce rate as well. Making sure your website is optimized for speed is easy to do and can have a dramatic impact on your website’s ability to convert visitors into paying customers.

Open Links in a New Window

If you have a link on your golf course website to an external source (ie. a PGA news story, or a supplier’s brand website… or your golf course’s Facebook page) you should have these pages open in a new window or new browser tab. When links like this are opened in the same window, it counts as a bounce when it happens on the first page view.

Wrapping it Up

Page views and bounce rates ѕhоw thе visitor еngаgеmеnt on your golf course website. The primary goal of your golf course website is соnvеrting more website viѕitоrѕ into paying customers.

Bounce rate is a good metric to guage the health and conversion power of your golf course website. If your bounce rate is above 50%, it’s time to do something to reclaim those lost revenue opportunities.