As a website owner or digital marketer at most, you’ve probably heard of bounce rate. Well, how does this dreaded metric affect your website? How can you improve it?
In this blog post, we’ll discuss what bounce rate is, why it’s important, and the actions to take to minimize it.
To put it simply, bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a website who leave immediately without taking any action, and it could be because they found what they were looking for, but it usually means they didn’t find what they were looking for and decided leaving was best.
And to be clear, it doesn’t necessarily mean your website is bad, as some people will inevitably leave after viewing just one page.
A low bounce rate indicates a good UX and that visitors are getting the required information needed from your website. A high bounce rate, however, indicates your website’s content, design, and usability is not creating quality experience and keeping visitors around.
The reasons for a high bounce rate are numerous, but the most likely culprits are inefficient loading times, lack of quality content, and very unattractive design.
Understanding Bounce Rate in Detail
Bounce rate is one of the most important metrics to monitor when analyzing the performance of a website. Understanding bounce rate and what can be done to improve it is a prerequisite for success.
A good bounce rate is generally considered to be below 40%. If a website has a high bounce rate, it could mean there are issues with the website design, page loading time, lack of relevant content, or any number of other factors. It’s important to take an in-depth look at the website and find out what can be improved to reduce the bounce rate.
7 Tips to Improve Your Website’s Bounce Rate
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Improve Your Site’s Load Time
Long loading times are a major cause of an increased bounce rate. Focus on making sure your site is optimized for fast loading times.
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Keep Content Updated
Making sure your content is up to date will make sure that visitors don’t find outdated information and leave immediately.
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Provide Quality Content
Creating content that is interesting, engaging and relevant to viewers will keep them on the page longer.
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Make Site Navigation Easy
A well designed navigation will keep people exploring your website, so make sure it’s easy to use and clearly laid out.
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Make Your Site Mobile Friendly
Make sure your website looks great on all devices and make sure users can access it easily, no matter what device they’re on.
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Use Internal Links
Linking to other internal pages or blog posts will keep visitors engaged and less likely to leave the page.
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Use Calls-to-Action
Encourage view to contact you or take an action on your website. It will give them a reason to stay and explore more of your site.
By understanding the nuances of bounce rate and making changes to the website where necessary, you can build and maintain a successful website that keeps viewers engaged and delivers great results.
If you got to this point of the article, you’ve done great for yourself, however, if you want to know more about branding and get hands-on tips on how to improve the outlook of your business to potential customers, check out our article on The Importance of Branding: Understanding the Basics and Types
