The bounce rate o shows the total number of people that left your website (across all the web pages). It is a metric which indicates the percentage of people who visit your site, but then immediately exit it without clicking anywhere else or visiting another page.
However, what it actually indicates is that people did not find what they were looking for on your site, so they decided to look elsewhere. A high bounce rate also points out that you were unable to convince the user to stay on your site and eventually click on your call to action.
As a site owner, you need to identify the cause of your site’s high bounce rates and address them post-haste. Otherwise, little or no potential customers will visit the site and, ultimately, you will suffer with low conversions.
To help you a little and save your time, the following are the main culprits causing higher bounce rates most of the time. How to deal with them is detailed below each issue to get your site in shape quickly.
Pop-Ups
Just think – you visit a site, start reading through its content, and, all of a sudden, a pop-up appears. What are you going to do about it? If you are a busy person who wants fast facts and no interruptions, this will be a turn off and you will likely exit the site.
While it is somewhat true that ‘carefully designed’ pop-ups can decrease bounce rate and eventually increase conversions, you cannot ignore the fact that pop-ups disrupt the user experience more often than not. As most of your site’s guests share your opinion and deem pop-ups as annoying, avoid using them entirely.
If you are still unwilling to let go of pop-ups and firmly believe in their ability to grow your email list, make sure to not force them on your visitors and make them as inconspicuous as possible.
IContent
The quality of your content is indirectly proportional to your bounce rate. Better content means a lower bounce rate whereas poor quality increases this valuable metric. If potential visitors do not find what they are looking for on your site, they will not see the point of sticking around. Thus, if your content strategy is not generating visitors (and improving bounce rate), it is time that you evaluate what you are doing wrong and make it right.
Since this piece is here to guide you, here are some very effective tips that will definitely improve your content and lower your bounce rate.
Keep Your Content Short and To-the-Point
Many studies have shown that the attention span of human beings is getting shorter and shorter by the year. Therefore, lengthy narratives will never be a good idea. If you want your audience to stay on your site and go through all its content, you need to craft the latter in a way that saves readers’ time while delivering all your messages. Some of the best ways to achieve this tricky balance is by using bullet points, images and info graphics. These make your content easy to absorb and understand.
Furthermore, because of their busy schedules, people today do not have more than a few minutes to spare. If you post lengthy content, they may decide to bookmark your page to read it up later (when and if they find time) and exit your site. While this means that your content was a hit with visitors, it still does not do much about your high bounce rates. So resist the urge to write a novella on your site and split your content into a series of small paragraphs to improve your bounce rate. You can further break your content across pages, a la WebMD, giving visitors the choice to read more by clicking on Page 2 or 3.
Offer Content that is Tailored to Your Intended Visitors
If you are not offering content that people are looking for, your site’s bounce rate will be badly affected as more visitors exit your site. In order to ensure that visitors do not decide to navigate away, develop and upload content that they find relatable.
Share Content that Persuades Visitors to Stick Around
Once visitors click on your site, you need to persuade them to stay on it long enough for them to realize that you may be the solution provider they have been looking for the whole time. Sharing videos, small pieces of interesting facts and figures are some of the ways you can make your visitors stay around.
Regularly reviewing pages that exhibit a high bounce rate or where visitors are generally spending a low average time can help you determine what type of content is not working. You can then do a little tweaking here and there to boost pageviews, lower your bounce rate, and increase conversions.
Update Your Content Regularly
Consistent and up-to-date content is the key to keep your bounce rates down. According to HubSpot, businesses that show consistency in updating their blogs are likely to generate 126% more leads than those that do not. This indicates that posting content frequently is crucial to score leads and reduce bounce rates in the long run.
Not only does fresh and up-to-date content lower your site’s bounce rate, but it also ensures that your existing visitors (and customers) continue to visit your site or blog. Because you are continually adding fresh and updated content for your visitors, it gains your site trust and credibility.
Landing Pages
The more optimized your landing pages are, the lower your bounce rate is likely to be. Most visitors are able to decide whether they like your web page or not with a single glance. As such, you should create a couple of landing pages and optimize them for each type of persona in your target audience.
To develop a great landing page, ask yourself the following three questions.
#1) Does it Answer and Satisfy your Visitors’ Queries?
If the landing page (where the traffic is directed to) does not answer a visitors’ query or is unable to satisfy them completely; they are bound to leave the page post-haste regardless of how much they actually need your services and match your buyer persona.
As a result, the content you generate on your landing page should be relatable (to the intended audience), direct, specific and capable of thoroughly answering all of your potential visitors’ queries. Let’s say someone is looking for information on types of mascaras available. If the page they are directed to contains a general overview of mascara and its usage, you should not be surprised to see them bounce off your site.
#2) Is Your Call-to-Action (CTA) Compelling? Does it Stand Out?
Often, you may come across landing pages where there is no CTA what so ever. On the other hand, website owners who do possess the good sense and wit to include a CTA to their page may fail to make them stand out.
Why is it such a bad thing, you ask? Because it is associated with the lack of usability and lack of navigation issue, two problems that are immensely detrimental to your bounce rate. Visitors are clueless when they arrive on your site. You need to tell them what you want them to do in the form of clear directions and actionable tips i.e. CTAs. If you do not ensure this, you may end up facing a huge problem, especially once visitors leave the page because the CTA was not prominent and noticeable enough for them to locate and move to the next step.
On the flip side, too many calls-to-action on your landing page will not be helpful in reducing your bounce rates. A site with too many CTAs will only confuse and overwhelm the visitors. Before you know it, visitors will leave your site and probably end up at your competitor’s site since it boasts simplicity and is less cluttered.
#3) Is your CTA Relevant to the Landing Page?
It is simply not enough to have a call-to-action that stands out. If you want to prevent users from navigating away, you need to deliver the promise you made to your visitors when they decided to click on your web page after it popped on search engine results or perhaps on an ad you ran recently. Your CTA should show what the user is expecting to see. For instance, if the ad you ran promises ‘new discount deals’, but it directs those who click on it to your homepage instead, they will leave the page immediately, adding to your bounce rate.
Site Loading Speed
Nothing really increases a site’s bounce rate as effectively as its lethargic speed . Statistics show that 57% of the users are likely to abandon a website which does not load within three seconds. In fact, for every additional second your website takes to load, you lose around 7% in conversions. This shows that consumers and visitors do not tend to wait around for your site to load. They will simply leave your page and seek a site which loads faster, thereby ending up at one of your competitors’ sites.
Not only does your website loading speed impact the bounce rate, but it also affects your site ranking on the search engine result page. Therefore, high site loading speed is extremely critical. To take care of this issue and make your website a visitor magnet, use the three tips below.
- Avoid self-loading multimedia content or at least keep it minimal.
- Optimize your images using image compression tools.
- Switch to a faster hosting provider.
With efficient internet services available in your city to deliver rapid internet speed, you should not hide behind any excuses if your site continues to load sluggishly. So, if your site speed is still slow (you can get it tested via tools like Pingdom or GTmetrix for free), fix this issue now!
Site Design Complexity
Leonardo da Vinci said it best, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Keeping this bit of wisdom in mind, avoid confusing (and possibly annoying) your visitors by increasing the complexity of your site’s design. While you may be inspired to integrate a plethora of things (videos, audios ,etc.) to your site to make it appear more attractive and captivating to the visitor, the clutter they cause will drive them to find information elsewhere. You will be practically sending your clients to your competitors!
If you want to keep your site simple and void of any potential distractions, try the following two steps.
#1) Turn off Autoplay
Videos and audios that auto-play once a visitor opens the site may be deemed as an intrusion or distraction by many. While videos have indeed proven to be increasing engagement and conversions, auto-playing them every time a visitor visits your site will just annoy him/her. So, turn off auto-play and give users the option to allow it in the future.
#2) Design a Straightforward Navigation Menu
Simple and straightforward navigation means that visitors can easily find what they are looking for. A site map on the homepage is a good point to start. Moreover, a search bar on the top right corner is a good idea as it allows users to search your site without any hardship.
If you try these steps yet continue having a low bounce rate, there is a good chance that this may not be bad news. Maybe your visitors found your content relevant and then left your site to find out more about your products and services through forums or reviews? There is also the chance that they have found the solution to their query and are calling you to place an order. Though this scenario is not really very likely, it may be applicable if you have done everything you could to address the high bounce rate issue using the highly effective strategies mentioned in this article.
If you still need more help, do not hesitate to contact us for expert consultation. We will get you and your website back on track to ensure that your online presence becomes an inspiration to others in your niche.
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