“Website Bounce Rate” is often quoted as a problem. But before we find a fix for it, we need to first understand what it actually means. Bounce rate is the total percentage of users who visit your website and simply exit without viewing any other webpage on your site.
Whenever a visitor closes your website after visiting one sole page, a single request is directed to the Google Analytics to record that session. Bounce rate denotes the total number of such single page sessions divided by the total number of sessions. Basically, it gives the hard indication to whether your website is able to retain its visitors.
Why Does a Website Bounce Rate matter?
The success of your website depends highly on the visitors visiting more than one page. A Low bounce rate means more page views which may translate to more conversions and sales. On the other hand, an unusually high bounce rate indicates that either your visitors are getting what they want but JUST THAT and not anything else or they are not getting what they want at all. So how can you lower your bounce rate? Below are few tips which will help you get started.
Tactics To Reduce Website Bounce Rate For Increased Conversion And Sales
1. Speed Up Page Loading
The number one reason why users will abandon a page is slow page loading. Site speed is one critical aspect you need to take care of. Today, consumers expect a website to load in 2 seconds or less. After 3 seconds, they would not wait but move on to your competitor’s site. So, the slower your landing pages load, the higher will be your bounce rate. Some tips which can help you with quick page loading are:
- Remove hard loading graphics
- Compress all your graphics and images
- Check the page speed on your website – Google Page Speed tool, Pingdom and Google Analytics are some free tools you can try.
2. Cross Browser Compatibility
Different users prefer different software and processes to read websites. Hence, if your website efficiently loads and functions properly on Chrome, it doesn’t essentially mean it would perform the same way on Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, or other browsers. Make sure you always test your website on all browsers and if you find an issue that’s contributing to your site’s high bounce rate, immediately fix it. A broken script or mixed-content warning issue are some common issues contributing to cross-browser compatibility.
3. Attract Right Visitors
A Higher bounce occurs when you are attracting wrong website visitor from the start, basically, your targeting strategy is going wrong. If you notice a particular web page is experiencing high bounce rates, then look at your marketing campaigns which are meant exclusively to drive traffic to that page. There are chances that the visitors who are coming via those channels are bouncing since the marketing efforts or ads are not relevant for them. Use your site’s analytics and monitor which to see which search terms are bringing people to your website and then compare them to your page’s content. If you find any misalignment, then edit your page’s title, header, image alt text and meta description so that they precisely describe what’s on the page.
4. Have A Valuable Offer
While you might consider your products/services offerings on your website as supreme, visitors might have a difference of opinion. Remember, the offers you make are going to cost some money to your visitors and they wouldn’t part with their money easily. The trick to increase your conversions is to make an offering that is totally irresistible. To crack this, offer something that is FREE – like a free ebook, free consultation, free trial, free sample, and so on.
5. Say No To Pop Ups
Pop Ups were once a very popular vehicle in online advertising, but currently they have become a bane. These disturbing ads cover content and weaken websites UX. Also, they provide visitors a good reason to exit your website and trigger a bounce. You can always experiment with popups to internal pages, but again even these should be approached with great attention.
6. Visually Appealing & Easy To Navigate Website
A great and visually appealing design instills trust and makes navigation instinctive. People don’t like to spend a lot of time on websites they don’t typically trust or find tough to navigate. Make navigation as easy as possible for your visitors by having a great design.
7. Target High-Value Keywords
When it comes to online marketing, keywords play a pivotal role as they can make or break your campaign objectives. To reduce your bounce rate you need to start focusing on improving search performance. You can do this by targeting high-value keywords, because that is exactly where all the high-value traffic is.
8. Update Your Outdated Content
Keeping your content up-to-date is crucial as none of your visitors would like to read a content piece that is 5 years old. This one is crucial, particularly for pulling down your website bounce rate when it comes to return visitors. Modern people look at information that is current, so give them something that is totally fresh! Another thing to note is – SEO, this is because Google counts content freshness as one ranking factor.
9. Include a Clear Call to Action
You always want your visitors to take some specific action, if you know what that action is include it as one crystal-clear call to action. But again, don’t include too many CTAs in one single page as it can be confusing for your visitors leading to an exit action. Carefully think about your user intent and how your web pages can help them in accomplishing their goal, and then include a relevant call to action that helps them get the job done.
10. Live Chat Solution
Today people don’t like to wait for phone calls, but they expect immediate answers for their queries. And, if they don’t get the answers to their questions they can simply move to your competitors. One of the most effective ways to reduce bounce rate is to integrate a Live Chat feature on your website. The live chat agent effectively handles all customer queries and also directs the visitors to relevant links from your website. This results in enhancing user experience on your website and increases possibilities for conversions and sales.
Final Thoughts
Bounce rate is the single ultimate Web Metric which measures the quality of your content, precision of your messaging, and usefulness of your value proposition. The above discussed strategies if implemented thoughtfully will definitely help in reducing the bounce rate of your website and will also display a gradual increase in your leads.
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