How to Lower Your Website’s Bounce Rate
8 Sep 2020 Digital Marketing
You were once so proud of your website. It was a well performing business tool that people easily found online, leading to new clients signing up and sales being made. Fast forward to today, and it is now a struggle to get potential customers to act. In other words, potential customers are finding your website and then immediately leaving. This is what the website analytic professionals describe as a bounce.
If you are wondering how to lower your website’s bounce rate, the team of search engine optimization experts from FirstPage Marketing can help provide insights into enhancing a website’s content and performance in order to make it more appealing to users.
What is a Bounce Rate?
A bounce is when a user comes to a specific page on a website and then leaves. In analytics jargon, this is called a single-page session. A bounce rate does not apply to a website as a whole but, instead, is an attribute of each page; thus, every single page on a website has a bounce rate calculated by analytics. Some pages will have high bounce rates, and some will have low bounce rates. For example, the Thank You page that is displayed after a user uses a contact form will have a high bounce rate. But for the pages that make your business money, it is advantageous to have a low bounce rate.
How to Lower the Bounce Rate on the Most Profitable Pages
While there is no magic formula for lowering the bounce rate on specific pages on a website, you can reduce the bounce rate by first taking a logical look at why potential customers are abandoning those pages and then trying a variety of different solutions, such as:
1. Optimizing Content Loading Times
Since almost half of all users today expect a website to load in two second or less, it is important to ensure that your website loads quickly. Having a website that loads too slowly will result in potential customers leaving the website without converting, as well as higher bounce rates.
There are a number of things that can be modified by a skilled web development company to help your website load faster—speed optimization, image optimization, limiting use of jQuery, etc.—which, in turn, will help reduce your bounce rate.
Find out why page speed is important for SEO.
2. Ensuring Content is Relevant to the User
One of the biggest factors that leads to a high bounce rate is irrelevant content. This is because users are often searching for something specific and, if your website does not provide the information they are looking for, they will leave to find it somewhere else. Consider putting yourself in the shoes of your target market to better understand how to write content that will not only appeal to them but will encourage them to spend more time on your website.
It is also important to try not to overwhelm the user with long winded paragraphs. If the page is providing a large amount of content, make sure to break it up by using headings and bullet points. Since users typically scan a page at first to see what information jumps off the page and seems relevant, creating informative headlines in an engaging voice can go a long way in capturing the user’s attention.
Learn more about the importance of writing quality website content.
3. Engage Users with Videos
Videos are powerful page elements that attract the user’s attention. Videos can be embedded on the page to provide additional content or they can be used as background elements to create an eye-catching call to action area.
4. Avoid Annoying Popups
In the world of user experience design, a popup is a cardinal sin. In most cases, popups only manage to disrupt a user’s experience and annoy them into leaving the website. Instead, consider carefully placing calls to action throughout the website, including contact forms, that will encourage users to convert into customers without ruining their overall experience on the website.
5. Target the Right Audience with Digital Marketing
Getting users to your website takes various initiatives like SEO, pay-per click advertising, and social media advertising; however, if the advertisements for your business are targeting the wrong users, it will not matter how great your page layout and content is because the products and services you are offering will not benefit the audience viewing the ads. In order to lower your website’s bounce rate, it is important to ensure that all digital marketing initiatives are targeting people who are looking for what you are selling.
Part of reducing your bounce rate is understanding not just why users are bouncing but also who is bouncing. Understanding the whole picture brings the best results. If you are interested in finding out more about how to reduce your website’s bounce rate or if you want help with building a complete digital strategy, the team at FirstPage Marketing would love to share their experience with you. Feel free to get in touch with them today.
