Having a high bounce rate indicates that your website is boring. You must make sure people who visit your website want to stay a while and check things out. Here is all about what is bounce rate and how to keep your average website bounce rate low.
Bounce rate of a website is the percentage of visitors that takes a look, gets disinterested, and leaves before looking any further than the Landing Page. This is worse than not getting much traffic at all because these people find your website boring and annoying and will let others know. So eventually, there will be no traffic.
What is bounce rate ?
Some people confuse bounce rate and exit rate. Exit rate is about the number of people who visit and check out your website without buying a product or service. This is something you cannot avoid because people often come go virtual window shopping. But bounce rate is about a person visiting your website and leaving without checking out another page. Hence, website bounce rate is something you want to decrease.
Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t matter how long a person spent on the first landing page. If the visitor doesn’t click on any other page, it counts as a bounce. When you check out your Google analytics bounce rate, what you are seeing is the number of people who didn’t find your website worth exploring. You need to change that.
How to lower average bounce rate
“What is bounce rate?” has been answered. You now know it is bad to have a high average bounce rate. So what’s a good bounce rate? Typically, the lower the better. If your bounce rate is anything higher than 20 percent, you have a problem. Once you stop making some typical mistakes, your average bounce rate will automatically go down. Here are some tips that will definitely help you decrease your website bounce rate:
1. Multiple landing pages
It is only simple logic that a virtual room with no space issues will enable more visitors enter when the number of doors are higher. Having multiple landing pages will help people visit your website from the exact page they want to see and that will also help them want to see more. If they land on the Home Page or any other designated page they don’t mean to, they might just leave without looking for the relevant page, increasing the average bounce rate. Your website should have at least landing pages to decrease website bounce rate.
2. Fresh and unique content update
Say you visit a page and the first thing you see is something you’ve already seen before. What do you do? You leave. Google analytics bounce rate will indicate if it is happening to you and if it is, you need to see why.
Do you have nothing new to offer? Change that. Hire some writers. The content of your website should always begin with proper market research. This will lower the average bounce rate and prevent the death of your website.
3. Readability
You need the content to be presentable. Would you care to stay on a page that gives you a headache? Neither will anybody else. Make your content readable.
Make your team of writers strictly follow these guidelines:
- Use bullet points.
- Write to the point and don’t use fillers. Let the content be compact.
- Use highlighted subheadings.
- Use relevant pictures once in a while.
- Use graphs, charts, maps, whatever is necessary.
- Write simple words and short sentences.
- Do not stray away from the topic.
- Do not plagiarize.
- Write short but informative introductions and conclusions.
- Use correct grammar but keep the tone friendly.
4. Annoying popup windows
You might not be able to afford a website free from popup ads right away, but you soon need to do it. Annoying popup ads are one of the top reasons for a high bounce rate Google analytics say. Also make sure the regular ads on your page, if any, do not cover the actual page.
5. Meta description
Meta descriptions are important. Most people click on a link on Google search only after reading the meta description. So chances are, if you don’t have one, the question of website bounce rate doesn’t even arise because they won’t even visit the page at all:
- Make your meta descriptions short and informative.
- Incorporate the target keyword and other high value keywords.
6. Target
You need to target the right audience. If you are selling cat food, do not try to link your website to another gym website. If you are targeting the wrong people, you look desperate, dumb, and annoying.
If you target the right audience, you look like you know what you are doing. Use software tools to figure out where you can find the right target. That way from the very beginning, you decrease your chances of a high website bounce rate because you are only bringing in people who are probably already interested.
7. High load speed
If there has to be just one cause of a high website bounce rate, it would be slow loading speed. Make your website light and agile. Make sure you are not testing people’s patience with an ill-designed website.
Here is how you can do that:
- Reduce cookie size.
- Use cookie-free domains.
- Avoid filters and CSS.
- Choose to link instead of import.
- Eradicate 404s and redirects.
- Reduce HTTP requests.
- Use CDN.
8. Responsive web design for mobile
Anybody who does not have a website suitable for mobiles will very well know the answer to “What is bounce rate” because website bounce rate will be the only thing high on their analytics report. You need to make sure that your website is designed to respond well across various platforms and operating systems.
9. Avoid back button fatigue
When you incorporate external links in your website, make sure they open in new tabs. Do not let your landing page get covered under external links.
This causes back button fatigue for those who want to get back to the original website and more often than not, they click the ‘Close tab’ button instead, increasing the average bounce rate. For that set your external linking to ‘Open in New Windows’.
10. Make compelling CTA
You want to convert your website bounce rate and not just have a high exit rate instead. Have responsive call-to-action buttons that can be seen immediately.
This way, visitors will not feel lost on your website. The web design will look reliable and functional. When a right target visits a page with a compelling CTA, they stay for one transaction and more.
Now that you know the answer to “What is bounce rate?”, you can help yourself reduce the average bounce rate Google analytics will guide you through it. Google analytics bounce rate information is accurate and detailed. It will help you figure out what exactly is wrong so you know what you have to do in order to minimize website bounce rate.