How to reduce your website bounce rate

High bounce rate is one of the most common conversion killers. If the majority of your users are abandoning your website on the first page, then you don’t have a chance to convert them into subscribers or customers. For those of you who may be new to digital marketing, a “bounce” and “bounce rate” are defined by Google as:

• Bounce: “a single-page session on your site”
• Bounce Rate: “single-page sessions divided by all sessions”.

On the other hand, if the page has been designed to convert customers through additional information or calls to action, then a high bounce rate may be indicative of poor performance.

What is bounce rate?

Bounce rate is an Internet marketing term used in web traffic analysis. It represents the percentage of visitors who enter the site and then leave (“bounce”) rather than continuing to view other pages within the same site. Bounce rate is calculated by counting the number of single page visits and dividing that by the total visits. It is then represented as a percentage of total visits.

How to reduce your bounce rate ?

Identifying and fixing the problems with your landing pages can easily fix your high bounce rate problem. Let’s check out some of the risks of higher bounce rate and how to fix them.

Before you start, it’s a good idea to identify your top pages with the highest bounce rate. You can do this by going to Google Analytics and clicking on:

Behavior » Site Content » Landing Pages

Knowing the top pages will help you identify the problem areas and fix them. Now let’s have a look at tips to reduce your sites bounce rate.

1. Optimize page load time

People expect your website to load in 2 seconds if it takes more than this your visitors will not wait for your site to load. People will end up visiting other website. The slower your landing pages load, the higher your bounce rate will be.

Google ranking also affects your website ranking. A slow site can destroy your business and discourage potential customers from buying from you. Find out your website’s current speed by using tools like; Pingdom and Google Page Speed.

2. Make your content accessible and readable

You can have great content but if someone leaves your page because your content is too difficult to read, it is not worth it. Some simple changes can really make a difference like increasing your text size specially for mobile. The text color also matters a lot . If something looks nice doesn’t mean it can be good for your site.

To make it easy to read, break your content. First, the headline – big and bold. Then, use subheadings and bullet points.

Here are a few tips to help you format your content and make it more readable:

• Use subheadings to throw more light on your topic.
• Also, use bullet points to explain benefits or points worth noting.
• Use plenty of charts, images, screenshots and quotes from industry experts, where appropriate.
• Bold keywords a few times but don’t overdo this.
• Ask a lot of questions in your content, to give readers an invitation to participate, instead of just read.
• End your content with a subheading entitled “conclusion.” This tells the reader to quickly read the last few words and take action. Make your conclusion actionable.

3. Avoid pop-ups

Maximum of the visitors find irrelevant pop-ups annoying. Among site owners and marketers, it’s an intensely debated topic: whether to use popups or to avoid them. Using lots of pop-ups can lead to higher bounce rate.

On the other hand they can grow your email list quickly. Some popups are well designed and they will convert visitors into long-term readers, which is part of improving conversion rates. But, when we’re talking about search engine traffic and what makes search users excited, it’s a great user experience.

4. Create a call-to-action button

You should also think about what specific action you want users to take when they’ve consumed whatever content you’re offering. Once you know what you want them to do, you can prompt your visitors to take action by including ONE clear call to action.

The more CTAs you include on a single page, the more likely you are to confuse and overwhelm your visitors. It would be great if you could include several CTAs on a single page and trust visitors to diligently investigate and evaluate each before taking an action. Your site should make it effortless for visitors to find – and do – what they want to, quickly and easily.

5. Write attractive meta descriptions for search users

A lot of companies don’t optimize their meta descriptions for search users. As a result, their click-through rate continues to decline.

Maybe they didn’t think that it was that important – but it is. When users type a keyword into Google search, any word that matches the search term is bolded, to differentiate it from the rest and to tell the searcher to consider that result.

Meta descriptions are HTML attributes that describe what a particular web page is about. Search engines use meta descriptions to display a snippet of your web page, so that users can determine whether a particular search result is right for them, just by reading the description.

6. Use videos to engage your audience

Videos are highly engaging and grab attention more than text or even images. You can use a fullscreen video as a background, or add it next to your call of action. Videos are powerful. You can use animations, music, audio, narration, colors, and so many different forms of persuasion tools. You can create a very effective video presentation with a small budget.

7. Use high quality images to captivate user attention

Images are another effective tool that you can use to decrease your bounce rate. The reason so many websites use high-quality photographs as fullscreen backgrounds is that they have proven to be very effective.

Companies like Google that were famous for their plain white background and minimalistic layouts are now using high-quality images on their landing pages. You can use these high-quality images as fullscreen backgrounds, parallax backgrounds, background slides, or as inline images next to your call to actions.

8. Optimize for mobile

You can use these high-quality images as fullscreen backgrounds, parallax backgrounds, background slides, or as inline images next to your call to actions. Launching a mobile-friendly site is a huge pain, especially for larger websites.

In fact, mobile-friendliness is a ranking factor. This means that if your site is not mobile-friendly, no matter how useful your content may be, it won’t rank well in Google results pages.

If you’re a WordPress theme user, it’s very easy to make your site responsive. All you’ve got to do is install the JetPack plugin and activate the mobile theme. You can also use the WPTouch plugin.

9. Make your site readable

Majority of content on most websites is in text format. It is unfortunate that this important part of any website’s user experience is often the most neglected one. However, it is one of the most important and crucial elements that could shape your site’s visual appeal.

You need to make sure that the text on your website is easily readable on all devices. It shouldn’t be too small or else users will have to squint or zoom in to read it. Use font sizes that are large enough on smaller screens.

Typography or readability is not just limited to choosing the font size and color. You also need to make sure that the text on your website looks beautiful. There should be enough line spacing, padding, and margins to make text look clean and beautiful.

Another important point to consider is the language and style you choose to use on your website. Use easy-to-understand language in a normal conversational tone.

10. Show your credibility

The word “credibility” is the ability to inspire belief or trust in other people. Don’t ignore this point it matters a lot. It is not easy to trust a new business with your money or information. A new user doesn’t know how good your business is and what kind of reputation you have earned.

Display the glowing reviews of your product or services from third-party websites like Product Hunt. Also, showcase your awards, endorsements, certifications, quality scores, and industry affiliations. Make your website secure and display safety seals. This builds user trust so they’re comfortable handing out their credit card and personal information.

A credible site does the following:

• It makes people trust and believe what it says (the content)
• Plus it gives people reassurance that their personal information is safe
• Instills confidence in them, when spending their hard-earned money
• Also it eliminates the buying dilemma (e.g. should I buy or not)

Conclusion

There are many more factors that can be discussed to reduce your website bounce rate. But focusing on these factors can leave a positive impact on your website. But, without high-quality content, even if you succeed at cutting your bounce rate in half, your risk of increasing it again is high. To avoid that, map out a content strategy and an editorial calendar.

We hope this article gave you some good tips to reduce bounce rate on your site and increase your conversions.