Bounce rate measures how many people left your site without interacting with it. The higher the bounce rate, the more users find your page irrelevant or unhelpful. If you want to increase the time your site visitors spend on your website and improve their experience, you should reduce your bounce rate as much as possible. In this article, I will share 20 proven ways to reduce your bounce rate.
Write a Compelling Headline
The first thing you must do to lower your bounce rate is written a compelling headline. If a user doesn’t want to read your headline, they’re not going to click on your link. It’s that simple.
A compelling headline must do two things: It must be relevant to the reader’s search query and written so that the user wants to click on it.
Even if you get visitors from social media channels like Twitter or Facebook, you still have to write a compelling headline if you want to keep people on your page for more than 2 seconds.
The reason for this is that people decide whether or not they want to stay on a page within seconds of landing there. So if you don’t grab their attention with either a great title or an awesome featured image (or both), then you’ll lose them just as quickly as gaining them.
Make Your A/B Test Results Actionable
So you’ve run an A/B test, and it has a significant result. Congratulations! But what do you do next?
Most people don’t know where to go from there. They run the test, see that it has a significant result, and move on to something else. This is not a productive approach.
The biggest problem with this is that you often miss out on a big opportunity: if your A/B test had a 45% improvement, why not apply that same improvement to all of your traffic? You could make all of your visitors 45% happier! And yet most companies never do this.
This is because they don’t have a process for what to do after running their tests.
Toss Some Content Teasers Before Subscriber Gated Content
Content is king. It is the reason your website exists – to provide valuable content for your readers. But, it is a mistake to assume that all of the content on your website has to be free. Some of the best content you can offer as a marketer should require conversion before being viewed.
After all, if you invest hundreds of hours into creating something, you deserve to be paid for it! But, if you do create subscriber-gated content, be sure to toss in some teasers before the sign-up form.
You don’t want to give away too much of your content for free because people won’t see any value in paying for a subscription. But you also don’t want to give away anything at all, or people will assume what you are offering must not be very good. And that drives down conversions.
The key is balance. Give them enough information to whet their appetite but not so much that they’re full before they even begin reading!
Optimize Your Forms for Conversions
Your website forms may seem insignificant, but they are the tools that help you convert your visitors into leads. If your forms are long, complicated, and difficult to fill out, you will lose visitors. You need to optimize your forms for conversions to reduce your bounce rate. According to Formstack, the average visitor spends only about 15 seconds on a web page before leaving. This means you have a very small window of time to get their attention and provide them with an excellent user experience.
Include Only What Is Required
Only ask for the information you need. Do not ask for too much, or the visitor will leave without filling out the form. Make sure you only include fields that are relevant to what you want to find out about your visitors. For example, if all you want is an email address and phone number so you can follow up with them, then only include those fields. Do not add any other fields just because they sound good or someone told you they were important; if they do not apply directly to what you want to know, do not include them.
Choose the Right Colors for Your Calls to Action
When it comes to your calls-to-action, color is as important as its position on the page.
You want your CTA to stand out without distracting from the rest of the site.
For example, compare the two CTAs below:
Which one do you think will work better?
If you chose the one on the right, you’re right! Not only is it placed in a prominent location on the page, but it also contrasts with its surroundings. The high contrast between the orange button and its green background helps make it stand out.
The color of your CTA also needs to feel appropriate for your brand and industry. For example, a children’s toy store will probably use a brighter palette than an accountant’s office.
So when choosing a color for your CTA, first ask yourself what is appropriate for your industry and brand? Who are your customers, and how would they respond to different colors? If you need more help with this, check out this guide on choosing colors for your business.
Conduct Regular Site Audits
One of the best ways to reduce your bounce rate is to conduct regular site audits.
A site audit will help you discover what pages and content work for your users and which ones need some work.
By regularly auditing your website, you can ensure that it’s always optimized for your audience, which can go a long way toward reducing your bounce rate.
Customize 404 error pages
Displaying a 404 error page is okay, but customizing it is even better. When you customize it, you can show your visitors content that they may be interested in. And that’s exactly what The Huffington Post did with their 404 page. They use the same design of their website and display the most popular articles. If you have a popular blog, then you should try this.
But there are more ways to reduce your bounce rate than just having an awesome 404 error page. So keep on reading to discover them!
Promote Related Posts on Every Post (Internal Links)
Promoting related posts on every post you publish is one of the best ways to reduce your bounce rate. This gives your visitors a chance to browse your blog and read more of your blog posts.
When it comes to promoting related posts, I use the Contextual Related Posts Plugin, which allows me to promote related posts either at the end of my post content or in a widget area.
To make sure I could get the most out of this plugin, I customized it to match my blog design. You can check out how it works on our blog.
Create a Clear and Compelling Value Proposition
You need to clearly explain the benefits of your product (better, faster, cheaper) to customers. You need to create a clear and compelling value proposition that helps you communicate this message clearly on your website.
Make sure the headline is clear and communicates what you do or what you offer simply. If you have to spend more than 5 seconds attempting to explain what your business does, there’s a problem.
If you want people to take action, you need to give them a reason. Without an incentive or promise of value, no one will pay any attention to what you have to say.
Test different headlines and CTAs against each other until you find the one that works best for your site.
Improve Your Site’s Design
The design of your site is the first thing that visitors will notice, and it can create a lasting impression. If your site looks outdated or has a confusing layout, visitors are more likely to hit the back button and find a similar site that has a better design.
If you haven’t redesigned your site in several years, it’s probably time for an update. Start by looking at popular sites in your industry to see what they’re doing well. You can also use tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights to identify ways to improve your site from a technical standpoint.
Make Sure Your Site Loads Fast
The first thing you need to do to reduce your bounce rate is make sure that your site loads fast. If visitors click on your site and find that it takes more than 3 seconds to load, they’re extremely likely to hit the back button.
There’s nothing more frustrating than waiting for a slow website to load. It’s even more frustrating if you don’t know how long the page will take to load and have no idea what progress has been made.
It’s common sense: people won’t wait around and read your content if your site doesn’t load fast. And as a result, they’ll be more likely to bounce from your site before they’ve even had the opportunity to read what you have to say.
Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): A CDN works by distributing static files across multiple servers so that users can get access from the server closest to them. This is less distance for data packets to travel, resulting in faster page load times.
Use Local On-Page SEO Techniques
Local on-page techniques are really important to help you reduce your bounce rate. If you want to be ranked in local search results, you need to make sure that you optimize each page of your website for local keywords and phrases.
You should include the name of the city or town and state in the title tag, meta description, content, and URL of your landing pages.
Also, be sure to include a clickable phone number with a call tracking number in the header of every page and use schema markup to identify your business location.
These local on-page techniques will help your website rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant queries when someone searches for your company name, product, or service along with a specific location (city).
Make Sure Your Ads Are Relevant
One of the biggest causes of a high bounce rate is irrelevant ads. If your ad doesn’t match your page content, visitors will leave your page quickly and never return. And they’ll tell their friends not to visit either!
To prevent this from happening, you should use the Google Display Network to target specific people and websites likely to be interested in your products or services. You can also use an automated bid strategy (like Smart Bidding) to help ensure your ads show up for the right people at the right time.
You’ll get better results each time you run a marketing campaign by paying close attention to what works.
Optimize Your Landing Pages
The landing page of your website is the most important, so it needs to be perfect. Make sure you create attention-grabbing headlines that tell visitors what they can expect to find on your site. Your bounce rate will be very high if visitors land on your site and don’t find what they think they will. Also, don’t forget to include internal links in your copy so visitors can easily navigate to other pages on your site.
A bounce rate is the percentage of all sessions on your site in which users viewed only one page and triggered only a single request to the Analytics server. In web analytics, a bounce is a single-page session on your site. In other words, when a person lands on your website and then leaves without viewing any other pages, that’s counted as a bounce. The average website’s bounce rate is 40-60 percent.
Don’t Use Popups That Waste People’s Time
People are busy. They don’t have time to waste on your website, especially when they’ve just landed there. So if they’ve arrived at your website and they find a popup that wastes their time, you’re not going to see them again any time soon.
What is a popup? I’m talking about anything that usually shows up as soon as someone hits your site and prevents them from getting to the content until they either click the popup away or subscribe/register/buy something. This includes popover opt-in forms (popups that show up after a few seconds), full-screen popups that take over your entire screen, and timed popups that show up after 5 or 10 seconds (or sometimes even longer).
If you are using a popup on your website, you should stop now. If you’re thinking about using one because you think it will help with conversions, please stop now.
Create More In-Depth Content
The best way to reduce your bounce rate is by creating more in-depth content. We’ve seen this repeatedly with our clients when they create in-depth, thorough long-form articles (1,000+ words) that provide their readers with valuable information.
Unfortunately, the majority of websites are not taking this approach. A study done by Orbit Media found that the average content length for blog posts is only 1,142 words. While this may seem like many words, it’s not nearly enough to satisfy your audience’s needs.
If you want to create content that satisfies your audience’s needs, you need to go above and beyond. This means you need to create thorough articles that cover every single angle of a topic or question your audience might have about a topic.
In addition to providing more information about a topic than other websites, an in-depth article provides more opportunities for Google to rank it for a broad array of keywords.
Create Clear Category Pages On Your Site
One of the reasons visitors leave a website is that they can’t find what they are looking for. Creating clear category pages on your site and making them easy to navigate can help reduce your bounce rate and keep visitors on your site.
This post will go over how to build clear category pages on your site so that you can help keep visitors engaged with your content.
Make Sure All Important Information Is Above The Fold
The top part of your website/blog is “above the fold.” This is the first thing visitors see when they arrive at your site. It should be at the top if you have important information in your sidebar, such as navigation. You want to make sure visitors can navigate your site easily and find what they’re looking for right away.
You want to answer their question or solve their problem right away, so they don’t leave your site. The longer they stay on your site, the more likely they will convert into customers. Even if they don’t buy something right now, they might bookmark your site and later return.
To reduce your bounce rate, make sure all important information is above the fold, so visitors don’t have to scroll down to find what they’re looking for.
Make Sure Your Site Is Responsive For Mobile Users
If you want to keep people on your site, make sure it’s mobile-friendly. And if you’re using a WordPress theme, make sure it’s responsive.
If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, it will be slow to load and difficult to navigate, which is a great way to push people away.
More than 40% of users will leave your website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
According to Google’s search algorithm update in 2018, “Pages that provide a poor user experience, such as pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as highly.”
This means that if your website has issues with navigation and usability on mobile devices, you could see your rankings drop dramatically.
Conclusion
This article should have given you some insight into approaching your bounce rate problem. Choose a strategy that fits your business and start implementing it right away. If you always keep your bounce rate in mind whenever you’re creating new content, you’ll be better equipped to keep it low. But always remember to monitor your progress, as the work of reducing bounce rate is never truly over. Things can change so quickly; what might seem like a good idea now may not be worth it in a matter of months.
The tips above will help you reduce your bounce rate, which in turn will lead to more page views, more time on page, and most importantly, more engagement with your audience. By following these tips and doing everything within your power to optimize your site overall – you can expect to see positive changes.