Let’s start with the basics… What actually is bounce rate?

Google defines bounce rate as the percentage of single-page sessions (i.e. sessions in which the person left your site from the entrance without interacting with the page). For most people the obvious goal is to keep the bounce rate low, but sometimes when you are checking your website analytics you may notice that you have a very high bounce rate.

 Why do you have a high bounce rate?

For auto repair websites it is important to consider what the reader is actually looking for. In most cases, users visit your auto shop’s website for one reason – they are in need of a car repair. When these users arrive on your website they are specifically looking for your shop’s contact information to schedule a repair appointment. This information most likely appears on your homepage.

Thinking in this mindset, the real question you should be asking is how many of the visitors on your website are actually calling or booking appointments based on your website’s call to actions. If a user can find all of the information that they need on your homepage without visiting secondary pages, this may result in a high bounce rate as well as a high ROI. After all, isn’t the overall goal of your website to increase booked appointments?

So is there a supplemental way to track booked appointments from my website?

A feature that can be added as another metric to track your website’s success is call tracking. This feature will add a tracking number to the phone numbers on your website, giving you access to the total number of calls that you receive directly from your website. If you add the number of calls that you received from your website with the number of appointments booked online, it will give you a better idea of your website’s ROI.

Still not convinced?

CallRail, a phone call tracking and analytics company, created the following infographic which gives insight into how customers today are searching for local businesses with the help of their smartphones.

One of the most important statistics to take away from this report is “inbound phone calls convert to revenue 10-15 times more than web leads.” With the majority of customers searching for local customers via their smartphone, it is crucial for your auto shop to start tracking calls to measure total ROI for your website.

Ready to be a website marketing expert?

To become an expert, you should start tracking both bounce rates and phone conversions. By following these metrics you will be able to gain a better understanding of your website’s audience and in what ways your website is converting visitors into customers.

Do website visitors come to your homepage, find all of the information they need, book an appointment and then leave your site? This will result in a high bounce rate. Or does the visitor land on your homepage and have to click around between multiple pages to find the information they need before leaving your site? This will result in a lower bounce rate.

To sum it up, as an auto repair shop you should always make it easy on the customer. Since 70 percent of mobile searchers are using click-to-call to connect with a business directly from search results, you should make sure that all of the information that they need is available at the tap of a smartphone.