Bounce rate is one of the considerable indicators of a website’s effectiveness. This metric displays the percentage of visitors who storms out of the site after only viewing a single page. It indicates whether your site meets the expectations of your target audience when they visit it for the first time. What causes this to happen? And how can the bounce rate be reduced?
The following article will discuss the top 11 important tips for preventing users from leaving your site too soon!
Two Major Causes of High Bounce Rates
Nowadays, website owners invest a lot of time and money into making their site appealing, functional, easy to navigate, and engaging. Despite this, the bounce rate remains extremely high in some cases. A high bounce rate can be caused due to two factors:
- The first is that sometimes people find all of the information they need on the first page of a website and then leave.
- The second (and most common) reason is that your website may require enhancements.
A high bounce rate is extremely unfavourable for most websites and results from poor usability. However, there are times when a high bounce rate is a sign of good UX. It refers to situations where a person is looking for information, such as selecting a kitchen table. They may find all the information they require by clicking on the search engine results link and leaving the site. It demonstrates that your page meets the expectations of your target audience in this case.
Nonetheless, such situations are exceptions to the rule. On the other hand, a high bounce rate usually indicates that your site has some flaws that should be addressed.
Why should we try to lower the bounce rate?
As mentioned in the previous topic, bouncing visitors are a missed opportunity. Instead, they are visitors who came to your website after a long digital journey and then left without interacting.
Engagement is far more important than raw numbers for Digital Marketing. If you receive a million visitors per day, it makes no difference if none results in a single conversion.
Because optimisation is vital, the bounce rate is important. Companies at the forefront of the digital field aren’t necessarily those with the most money to invest. But in reality, those that can convert as much as possible to their budget.
You keep them when you can make an excellent first impression. These users are drawn to your website, content, and brand. And each new page they view brings them one step closer to completing a transaction.
Also, you’ll have more time to get to know them. Users who stay on your site for a longer time are more likely to return. They make it a habit, which leads to increased sales, brand exposure, and loyalty.
A solid bounce rate approach can help a firm enhance conversion rates while using the same digital plan and budget that they already have. As a result, it is a faster and easier approach to broaden your reach.
What Should You Do If You Have a High Bounce Rate?
1. Check the Loading Speed
If your website has a considerably high bounce rate, the loading speed is the first thing to look at. After all, consumers may close a tab on your website merely because it takes too long to load.
The ideal loading time is less than two seconds. Otherwise, there’s a good chance the reader may become tired of waiting and going to your competitor’s site. People don’t tend to wait long for the information they require or the opportunity to purchase if they have a choice.
2. Examine why visitors are leaving so early.
Let’s return to the example at the beginning of this post. People are entering your store, glancing around, and then leaving. What is the first question you have? It would help if you were wondering what scared them away.
Was it the arrangement of the store? Was there a conflict between the expectations they created and what they discovered on the inside? Were the offers withdrawn? Perhaps the folks you’re attracting aren’t interested in your brand.
Each answer you uncover will better understand what you need to do to optimise your bounce rate. This is why it is critical to understand your buyer profile and base your approach on it.
3. Design a more enjoyable user experience
All of the questions above should lead your team to elements, tools, and processes that improve your site’s user experience.
A good user experience begins with a speedy and well-structured website, but it goes much beyond that. It combines visual components, content, and interaction to meet specific expectations.
Use your buyer persona as a guideline once more. What are they looking for when they visit your website? What exactly are they looking for? How can you positively guide and even surprise them?
Perhaps a rewrite of your pages is required to make them more engaging.
4. Do make sure that your website is mobile-friendly.
With the progress of technology, there is an increasing number of screen sizes, input methods, and device capabilities that can visit your website.
Many bounce events occur when a person accesses your site but cannot readily browse or visualise part of the content. A responsive site is designed to react to any of these variations, ensuring that you don’t lose views due to a minor issue like that.
5. Create some landing pages
Predicting the entry points to your site is a challenge that businesses face when attempting to lower bounce rates. It doesn’t matter how good your home page is if most of your traffic originates from a blog post that wasn’t optimised for engagement.
Landing pages are an excellent option for this. They are specifically created as the best entry point, complete with enticing layouts and CTAs.
Consider the potential to produce more of them, as well as how you may modify your marketing plan to lead your traffic.
Increase your investment in graphic elements and connect them to the next steps you want your customer to take. Then, you may make a page truly interesting rather than one that receives only a fleeting glance – as long as it makes sense and resonates with your audience, of course.
6. Perform some A/B testing
If you’re still unsure about which decisions can increase UX and bounce rate, why not put them to the test? An A/B test is one in which you build two distinct versions of the same page and assign them to different visitors as they arrive.
Then you can see who did a better job of retaining traffic. You can either consolidate the winner or move on to the next A/B test, always boosting your stats.
7. Use images to attract your audience more quickly.
We, humans, are visual creatures. Therefore, having appealing and comprehended visuals and photos can capture the lead’s attention much faster than any text – sometimes even snappy CTAs.
Increase your investment in graphic elements and connect them to the next steps you want your customer to take. Then, you may make a page truly interesting rather than one that receives only a fleeting glance – as long as it makes sense and resonates with your audience, of course.
8. Improve your content market strategy
Content is a terrific method to keep visitors on your site. Useful articles, rich content, and relevant data will always be worth a more in-depth, meaningful interaction with your brand.
However, the components alone are insufficient. Even if the audience thinks it’s fantastic, they may still leave. So it’s time to invest in Content Marketing, with a link between subjects, a stronger SEO effort, and a common link building approach.
9. Make one last push before they leave.
The good idea is to employ tools and plugins that detect when a visitor is about to depart your site. This is accomplished by tracking mouse movement toward the common position of the close and back buttons.
When this trigger is enabled, the website may automatically display a message requesting that the user subscribes to a newsletter, for example. They may be bouncing right now, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in what you have to give. So you might be able to get a lead out of a nearly missed opportunity this way.
10. Use interactive content
Offering engagement is the best way to engage people online immediately.
When you invest in interactive content, you ask your user to perform activities that almost always result in them exploring, visiting other pages, and learning more about you.
Interactive ebooks and infographics, quizzes, and lookbooks are some examples. These can also be utilised on your landing pages to help people engage with you and stay longer. Interaction constantly maintains a high level of engagement.
11. Invest in live experiences.
If your goal is to keep your audience engaged with your content and brand for a longer period, why not use relevant events to bring them closer?
Liveblogging and live streaming are excellent tactics for maintaining interest and driving traffic to your pages.
You may increase your visibility by using social media while simultaneously hosting the live experience embedded in your website.
The key will be engagement: comments, UGC, and discussions can all be put up with the right technology and strategy.
With such suggestions for retaining traffic while increasing engagement, the effort to minimise the bounce rate is modest, and the advantages are beneficial to your brand.
Begin by identifying challenges and possibilities, and then cultivate a positive relationship with your buyer persona.
If you currently have a Content Marketing strategy, look into using live blogging to improve the reader experience on your pages!