Have you noticed that quite a few visitors fleetingly visit your website for a page or two and then disappear? If so, your bounce rate is high, and you need to get that sorted as soon as possible. A website’s bounce rate is measured by the number or percentage of people visiting who navigate away almost immediately after landing, without interacting any further or exploring other pages.
But why does that happen?
A high bounce rate will almost certainly mean that visitors just aren’t finding what they’re looking for on a website. The website may not clearly communicate what product or service it specialises in, for example. Or it could be that the website fails to engage visitors effectively, for example, it has a poor, outdated design.
How does a high bounce rate impact a business?
Those disappearing visitors will probably never come back to visit the website, which means potential customers will have been lost for good. Not good news at all if a business relies on its website for lead generation or has an ecommerce website! Even worse if the business is paying someone to market the website with SEO or PPC, as it will mean even more money down the drain!
So, how can a high bounce rate be reduced?
There are quite a few things that can be done to help reduce a website’s bounce rate. Maybe, it’s just a simple thing that’s putting visitors off, or maybe it’s several elements contributing to their hasty departure. Let’s dive in and discover what some of those elements are…
Design
No one will even enter a shop that has a scruffy outside and a dreadful shop window display. It’s the same with a website – if the design is lousy visitors will turn tail and run! A website should always be designed with the end user in mind and provide great user experience (UX). Using an uncluttered layout and easy navigation structure are sure ways to help visitors in their browsing experience.
Content
Relevant and engaging content that clearly informs visitors about the business and what products or services are offered will make them feel more confident in staying to browse. Text content should always be pitched at the right level for the target audience. Any images or graphics used on the website should be authentic and high quality.
Call-to-Actions (CTAs)
These are the buttons/links on a website that guide visitors to take desired action, such as ‘Find out more’, ‘Buy Now’ and ‘Get in touch’ . CTAs should be clear and compelling for visitors, with each one taking a visitor to where they want to be without any further obstacles. CTAs should also be strategically placed on web pages as not confuse visitors.
Page Load Speed
Slow loading web pages can put off visitors immediately. Not only frustrating, a slow loading website can make visitors doubt a business’s credibility and unsure whether to trust them. There are plenty of site speed checkers out there such as https://pagespeed.web.dev/ to evaluate a website’s speed. Optimising a website’s performance can be achieved by using efficient coding and reducing image sizes, for example.
Mobile Responsiveness
Google places great emphasis on a website being mobile friendly, and visitors too will expect a website to be fully accessible and functional on any mobile device they use. Websites that utilise a mobile-friendly design ensure great user experience, which in turn can reduce bounce rates.
SEO
A website experiencing high bounce rates may not be attracting the right visitors. To target and increase relevant traffic it’s quite straight forward to undertake SEO activities to use appropriate keywords, meta tags, and descriptive URLs. This will not improve visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) and should attract visitors who are actively seeking specific products or services.
Pop-ups
Landing on a website and immediately being bombarded with pop-up windows or overlays is a real turn-off for visitors and can drive them away. Pop-ups and overlays have become very popular because they can be effective for capturing leads or promoting offers, but should be used sparingly and made easy for visitors to dismiss.
Keeping ahead of the game
Website owners have plenty of tools at hand, such as Google Analytics, to monitor their website’s performance metrics, including bounce rate where they can identify patterns, trends, and areas for improvement. Adopting a regular habit of using these tools will help improve the overall performance of a website and assist in reducing bounce rates.
