Your bounce rate is a measure of success, and it can reveal a lot about your website’s performance. If your website has a high bounce rate, there are several things you can do to improve your customers’ on-site experience and increase the conversion rate.
A website’s bounce rate reveals whether visitors click on the site and immediately leave without taking action or if they stick around and somehow interact with the site. A high bounce rate is a bad sign, and it usually means that your website isn’t meeting your readers’ needs and expectations.
The average bounce rate for most websites is between 26% and 70%, while eCommerce websites have an average bounce rate of 47%. Even though this bounce rate might seem alright to you, it’s still too high.
There are a lot of external factors that contribute to a website’s bounce rate, such as the device used to enter the website, the industry the website belongs to, and the type of content it entails. Unfortunately, you can’t change these factors. However, this doesn’t mean that your bounce rate can’t or shouldn’t be improved. As an online business owner, your goal is to lower your bounce rate as much as possible to keep visitors interested.
Continue reading to learn about best practices for lowering your website’s bounce rate.
The Best Practices
A website’s bounce rate represents the total percentage of visitors who only view the landing page. In other words, they immediately hit the “Go Back” button without taking action. High bounce rates can occur for several reasons. In most cases, the visitor’s needs haven’t been met, or they simply didn’t find what they were looking for. Other factors, like slow loading time, website errors, and the website’s design, can also deter visitors from going further.
To become successful, a website needs to have a strong online presence. This is primarily achieved through engagement. Naturally, you’ll want visitors to continue reading, click on a link, subscribe to a newsletter, fill out a form, and eventually make a purchase. By reducing your bounce rate, you will be able to increase your search traffic, boost your conversion rate, and acquire more customers.
These are some of the best practices you can use to lower your website’s bounce rate.
1. Speed Up Your Site Loading Time
People who are browsing the web to find something usually don’t want to waste time. One of the most important aspects of user experience is the website’s loading time. This is especially true if the reader is in a hurry and needs to find something as soon as possible. In these situations, a slow-loading webpage can ruin your chances of getting a new client.
Slower page-loading times can result in higher bounce rates, a negative user experience, and even a significant drop in revenue. In fact, if the page loading time is six to seven seconds long, visitors have a 27.4% to 32.3% chance of bouncing. The ideal page loading time is one to two seconds, resulting in low bounce rates of 9.6%.
Users expect a page to load in two seconds or less. If this doesn’t occur, it can directly impact your conversion rate and revenue. The numbers are even scarier for mobile sites because users have higher expectations for their phones.
For this reason, optimising the page loading time is one of the best practices for lowering your bounce rate. If you’re not sure how to go about this issue, Automation Agency is here to help. As part of our landing page service, we can help you reduce your bounce rate by speeding up your site.
2. Understand the Numbers
Before you can begin optimising your website and look for holes to patch, it’s crucial to understand how to analyse your bounce rate. It’s a standard site performance metric that you can access using Google Analytics or other available analytics tools. Before you can even comprehend whether your bounce rate is low or high, you should have a pretty good grasp on it.
The bounce rate of your website is calculated by dividing the total number of visitors your page attracts by the number of visitors who “bounce” (leave the page without doing anything). Not every type of website has the same standards for “good” bounce rates. This mainly depends on the type of industry your business and website belong to. For example, grocery store websites typically have the highest bounce rate, while others, like the apparel and automotive industries, have the lowest.
Just as with any type of project or business venture, you should set a clear and reachable goal for your website. If your website’s current bounce rate is, let’s say, 70% to 80%, you should focus on lowering your bounce rate to 50%. If it’s already there, aim for 30%, and so on. One of the biggest red flags and signs that your website isn’t doing well is a bounce rate that exceeds 80%.
3. Look for Reasons Why People Leave Quickly
If you can’t figure out why your bounce rate is so high, it’s time to sit down and analyse every aspect of your website. There could be many different reasons why your website is failing to capture readers’ attention.
It’s all about producing content that’s relevant to your readers. No matter how well-organised and amazing your website might be, if it doesn’t have the information your readers are looking for, all your work will be for nothing. This is why you should prioritise user experience. In other words, try to think about what your readers really want.
Be extra careful about outdated content and information that no longer applies. Keep your blog posts up to date at all times. The “fresher” the content you add to your website, the more traffic you’ll attract. Not only does your content need to be relevant, but engaging as well. Whether you’re writing blog posts or posting visual content, make sure it brings value to your brand.
All in all, the best thing you can do is put yourself in your readers’ shoes and look at your website from a different perspective.
4. Focus on Content Readability
One of the most important aspects of creating a good user experience is readability. No matter what kind of website you have or the type of services you provide, your site must be easy to read. Just as the design is relevant, so is the visual appeal of the text you provide.
Nobody likes reading huge chunks of text. If you have a blog, remember to separate the text into shorter paragraphs. Add lots of space and increase the margins instead of trying to cram every part of the page with text. Readability also refers to the text’s size, colour, and font. If the text on your website is too small, readers have to squint to read it, which leads to eye strain and frustration. If the text on your website is small on a desktop, it will be even smaller on a mobile device. The same goes for the font. Avoid using weird fonts that are hard to read.
The language and tone you use should depend on the type of business you’re running, but keeping it simple is usually the best way to go. Readers typically respond well to a conversational tone, which they’ll appreciate much more than flowery language and terms no one has ever heard of. Keep your sentences short and straight to the point.
5. Aim to Attract the Right Visitors
One of the most common reasons you have a high bounce rate is that you might be attracting the wrong kind of traffic. If you’re wondering how to reach visitors that would help your business, you may have the wrong approach. To make sure your target audience can find your website, try doing the following:
- Make different landing pages.
- Come up with unique content and don’t copy other websites.
- Use targeted keywords that are relevant to your business and brand.
- Design online advertising campaigns that are targeted toward your clients.
- Write a compelling call-to-action (CTA).
- Add relevant meta descriptions for high search engine results.
Keywords are one of the most significant aspects of SEO marketing. Your keywords should have traffic, brand, conversion, and personal value. These are otherwise known as high-value keywords, and they’re very important for your bounce rate. The key is to focus on high-value keywords rather than adding lots of clickbait.
You’ll also want your website to have an appropriate CTA. Many websites include a handful of CTAs on just one page, which can be slightly overwhelming for the reader. Creating one clear CTA to get the readers’ attention is a much better idea.
6. Use Smart Formatting to Make Content Accessible
Smart formatting is closely related to making your text more readable, but this is where you focus on the website from the formatting point of view. Just like readers don’t like huge chunks of text that are hard to understand, they also turn away from badly-formatted pages.
Fortunately, there are many things you can do to make your content more accessible. The more confusing a website looks, the higher the bounce rate you’ll end up with. Try using headers, subheaders, bullet points, bolded text, and visual data (images, videos, charts, infographics, screenshots, etc.). If you want to use images and videos to capture your readers’ attention, make sure they have high quality and that they’re relevant to your business. The trick is in making your website visually appealing.
Poor site navigation can also result in high bounce rates. Visitors should be able to find menus, search bars, products, fees, FAQs, and other relevant website elements. You’ll want visitors to be able to navigate through your website with no effort.
7. Run Split Tests to See What Works and What Doesn’t
If you make any changes to your website or notice an increase in the bounce rate, it’s a good idea to check if everything is working properly. This is done with A/B testing, otherwise known as split-run testing. These types of tests produce two versions of your website, whether it’s a landing page or a single element, with the goal of figuring out which variable performs better.
A/B testing is a useful content strategy that allows you to test your bounce rate. The results can help you determine which parts of your website need to be optimised. It’s also possible that your site has some technical errors. Split-run tests will reveal any slow-loading pages, broken links, or other types of on-site issues.
Stop the Bounce
A high bounce rate can result in poor search engine results, slow website traffic, and reduced revenue. Many online business owners struggle with increasing the conversion rate and bringing in more clients because they can’t reduce their bounce rates. With these seven practices, you’ll be able to lower your bounce rate and make your website more engaging for your target audience.
Automation Agency’s online marketing services can help you reduce your bounce rate to a minimum. By optimising your website and improving site speed, we’ll help you attract an increasing number of visitors who actually stick around and interact with your website. You can contact us here if you’re interested in our online marketing services.
