As a marketeer, you are well aware that bounce rate is the number of your website visitors who leave without taking any action before they have had the chance to qualify as a lead.
You may have many visitors knocking on your website after being redirected by a search engine. But what happens if they leave your website in no time due to various reasons? The answer is: Your bounce rate increases and that’s not a good sign. These reasons can vary from your page speed to image loading time or at times, even your content.
First, let’s look at some bounce rate facts you must be aware of before rectifying the problem:
a. If your bounce rate is higher than 80%, then you have some serious problem with retention.
b. If it varies between 70% and 80%, then your website is performing poorly and you need to act as soon as possible.
c. When the bounce rate is around 50% and 70%, then that is considered as an average number for most websites.
d. If your bounce rate is between 30% and 50%, then this is considered excellent.
e. As difficult as this is to achieve, if your bounce rate is below 20%, you probably have a tracking issue.
What can you do to reduce your bounce rate?
We give you 16 simple steps to reduce website bounce rate and retaining your website visitors so they take an action.
1. Core Web Vitals Assessment
Check your website on https://pagespeed.web.dev/ and find the JS, CSS and Core Web Vitals Assessment to resolve most problems that exist for both desktop and mobile devices.
2. Image Size
It is important to resize all your website images below 100kb. It is even better if your images are in the WebP format. It is bound to improve your page speed as a result of which your bounce rate will reduce extensively.
3. Formatting
Make your content more accessible by adding:
- Appropriate headers (with keywords)
- Frequent subheadings
- Suitable images
- Bulleted lists (this will help in getting featured rank/zero rank)
4. Sidebar Widgets
Add Sidebar Widgets or sliding section in the content body.
If you want to highlight relevant content from your sidebar, then do so in a way that it offers the reader an additional value. For eg: Related article recommendations that expand upon the topic covered in a blog post are a great way to make your site “stickier” as well as provide useful content to your readers.
5. Time On Site
If your time on site metrics are decent, but your blog pages have a high bounce rate, then the problem may be with your content. On the other hand, if your bounce rate is high and time on site is low, you may not be giving visitors what they are actually looking for.
6. Meta Title And Description
Your meta titles and descriptions should be highly relevant to the content on a particular page. This will ensure better visibility.
7. Clear CTA
Include a single, clear call to action (CTA) button instead of too many at regular intervals so the user clearly knows where to click to perform one single action. Don’t confuse them with different CTAs.
8. Internal Linking Structure
Your internal linking structure should be logical as well as useful as it holds a key role in strengthening your website, not allowing your user to get lost elsewhere and find all the answers to his/her questions on your website.
9. Offerings
The products or services you offer must be clearly and systematically defined so that your user gets complete information on what your offerings are and what one can look forward to after taking an action.
10. Mobile Optimisation
In today’s world, it is mandatory to have your website mobile optimised. With the number of users accessing the web primarily from mobile devices increasing with each passing day, failing to optimise your site for mobile is practically begging for users to bounce and take their business elsewhere.
11. Highlight Top Offered Service
If possible, you must add your top offered service in the header navigation, which is open and directly visible.
12. Use Of Visuals
Any visual appeals to humans more than text as we are visual beings. Having images that are attractive and easily interpreted can grab the lead’s attention way quicker than any text. Sometimes even catchy CTAs can do the job.
Invest more in visual elements and tie them to the next steps you want your customer to take.
13. New Windows For External Links
Ensure your external links open in new window as it can mean the user may never come back to your website once s/he is directed to the external link.
14. User Experience
With most brands giving a lot of importance to user experience (UX), design a good one to give your user the best experience on your website about your products or service.
15. Word Count
Create at least 1,000 relevant words as content for better representation of your products and services and your categories on the website.
16. FAQs
Your ability to answer your user’s questions before they come to your website can help a great deal. Including a frequently answered questions (FAQs) page (that may be linked to your other content assets like blogs) can play a decent role in reducing your bounce rate.
Takeaway
Before rectifying the issue of high bounce rates, it is important to identity what is causing it. Your users could bounce due to other reasons like misguided offering, content not being up to their expectations and more.
TransFunnel
TransFunnel is a HubSpot Elite solutions partner and the first HubSpot CRM Implementation certified partner in APAC that has helped businesses increase their web traffic with impactful SEO and content.
Are you struggling with a high bounce rate? Reach out to us and we will help rectify it.
