How To Decrease Your Bounce Rate
Have you spent hours creating a spectacular website, only to find that it has a high bounce rate? This really puts a spanner in the works! If you’ve put in so much effort, but are losing those all-important conversions, then you should consider making some simple but effective adjustments to your website.
The bounce rate of your site is the number of users who visit your landing page but then navigate away without exploring any other pages.
A high bounce rate indicates that your landing page is just not appealing enough to users, meaning they’re not incentivised to explore the rest of your site. You may not even have a landing page, just a homepage that users exit leave very quickly.
The following blog post will help you reduce your bounce rate – meaning your website can increase in efficiency and be a greater benefit to your business.
Table of contents
Only Include One Call-To-Action
Have a clear objective regarding what you want to achieve when adding content to your page, and add a single CTA (Call-to-Action) button to drive conversions. Too many CTAs on a single page can confuse and frustrate users and make your page appear “over-marketed.”
Your clients need a straight forward user experience when reading the information you give them. They don’t want to feel too much pressure when it comes to purchasing your products. One clear CTA placed above the fold of the page will work perfectly!
Optimise Your Page Load Time
The amount of time it takes for your page to load directly affects your bounce rate, as users don’t have the patience to wait long periods of time for your page to load. In fact, 40% of people will leave a website that takes more than 3 seconds load time. Even a delay of 1 second can drive conversions down by 7%.
Tips for optimizing page load time include:
- Shifting Your Website Over to a Host That Works Better
- Reducing the Amount of Plugins
- Changing the Size of Images on Your Website
- Cutting Down Redirects
- Utilizing Website Caching
Make Sure Your Content Is Relevant
Is your content answering the pain points of the user? Is it affecting a level of the marketing funnel and actually driving conversions by keeping the interest of the reader and supplying them with what they want? SEO optimization is key, and you must make sure that the content on your page matches the search query that the users are asking, otherwise bounce rates will be high.
Using an SEO expert, together with a professional content writer and editor who knows how to write great copy will radically improve the experience of your site. Keep in mind, the more problems you solve for a user, the more likely they are to engage with your landing page and website.
Optimise Your Site For Mobile
According to statistics, 66.6% of the global population use mobiles, and 59.5% (4.66 billion) use the internet through their mobiles. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile, you’re losing a lot of business, and your bounce rate will definitely be affected.
Also, users engage with their mobiles online, at times when they can’t use a desktop; such as when they’re using transport, waiting in appointment rooms, or even at social events. However, the process of optimizing your website for mobile isn’t always easy, and you may need assistance in this.
However, at the end of the day, it will make the world of difference to your bounce rate, as will be measured by Google Analytics or any other analytical tool you may use.
Format Your Content For Easy Navigation
No matter what your content covers, users want to navigate easily on your page, and read copy that is formatted in an easy-to-read fashion. That’s why headers are so important to your site. They outline the framework of the copy, and allow for a quick scan to help users decide whether or not they want to dedicate their time to reading the content.
For quick reference, always use H1 (Header 1) for the title, and H2 (header 2) for subtitles. Any subtitles that fall under H2s will be in H3 (Header 3) format, and sometimes H4 (Header 4) will be used under that. This divides the content in a highly structured way that is easy on the eyes.
Using bullets also helps, as it directs the users to them and gives them short points of information. It also helps break up the paragraphs of content.
Finally, image usage is really important. In fact, according to PR News, online content with images attracts 94% more views in relation to online content that just contains words. Great images can be found on sites such as Shutterstock and Getty Images. However, don’t forget to compress your images so they don’t affect page load time, by using tools such as JPEGmini, Kraken, and ImageOptim.
Use Local Links
Nothing is more unattractive and counterproductive to the objective of your page than content crammed with too many links. Users often recognize it as a marketing ploy and are turned off immediately by it.
Keep it as a rule of thumb to use no more than five links going back to your own website per 1000 words. However, it’s important to use links when mentioning statistics as cross-reference, and because backlinks affect search engine ranking and your users will often be interested in them.
Conclusion
Keep your users engaged by following the tips above to decrease your bounce rate and increase conversions through your site. To help decrease the bounce rate on your website, contact one of our expert Digital Strategists today. The entire First Page team are committed to optimising your site and achieving success for your business.
