How to Reduce Bounce Rate on My Website?

A high bounce rate is the most common conversion killer. It tells Google a lot about your website’s quality, and if the bounce rate is too high, you may find yourself ranking low in search results. 

Today we share some tips and strategies on how to reduce bounce rate and keep visitors on your site.

What is bounce rate?

Before diving into ways to reduce bounce rate, it is important to understand what it is and how it is calculated. 

Google defines bounce rate as a single-page session on your site. In other words, if a user visits any of your pages and leaves without going to the other page, it is a bounce. A higher bounce rate means that you didn’t convince the visitor to stay and do an action (i.e. submit, buy, etc.). 

 

What is a good bounce rate?

In general, the bounce rate is estimated as follows:

• more than 80% is very bad
• 70 – 80% is poor
• 50 – 70% is average
• 30 – 50% is excellent
• 20% or less is likely a tracking error 

In fact, the bounce rate depends on the industry and type of website you have. Take a look at the chart provided by Kissmetrics to see the average bounce rate by industry: 

 

A higher than average bounce rate could be caused by the absence of leading pages, slow load time, poor navigation, bad user experience, lack of clear call-to-action, etc. 
 
Now it’s time to discover how to reduce bounce rate on the website.

Ways to reduce bounce rate in 2019

• Speed up your website

Users do not want to waste their time waiting for web pages to load. According to Kissmetrics, 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less and 40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load. 

 

Use tools like Google Page Speed to check and optimize your page load speed. To make your website you should compress images, use CDN, do a code clean-up, and much more. Follow this easy guide to speed up your website in 2019. 

• Create clear call-to-actions

Are your call-to-action (CTA) buttons clearly visible? CTA can be displayed rather in the headline or the button text, however, they should differ from the rest of the page elements. Tell your visitors directly what you want them to do, e.g. submit, buy, etc. 

If you have already attracted your visitors with appealing design and interesting content, don’t lose them because of weak call-to-action. Your CTA button has to compel visitors to click it and see what’s next. 

Every second spent on your website will improve your conversion rate and reduce your bounce rate. And a call-to-action is a nice tool to lead your visitors from one web page to another. 

• Improve user experience 

Users decide whether they like a website or not during the first few seconds. Your task is to ensure a positive user experience (UX). Be sure that a poor UX won’t be unnoticed. Visitors abandon websites immediately if the navigation is unclear, or design is not appealing. Look at your site through the eyes of your potential customers. What do you want to see? 

The key elements of positive user experience are:

1. appealing design
2. clickable links
3. ease of website navigation
4. clear and visible call-to-actions
5. a balance of color palette 
6. fast load speed

Discover how you can improve user experience in five easy steps.  

• Use relevant keywords

Make keywords research. You should find one main keyword and 2-3 secondary ones that people type in Google when looking for products, services or content like yours. 
 
Do not target keywords of low relevance. If your website gets traffic that has nothing to do with the content you offer, the visitors will bounce the moment they open a web page and see nothing relevant to their query. 

• Set external links to open in a new window

Linking out to other reputable sources is good for your search engine optimization. However, it takes visitors away from your site. The solution is to set external links to open in a new window. In such a way users will be able to come back to your website and stay longer. 

To make your links open in a new window, simply check the “Open link in a new tab” when adding URL in the editor. There are also special modules or plugins that will do it automatically.    

• Make your website mobile-friendly

Mobile internet usage grows massively. People have access to the Internet almost everywhere. To keep up with the times, your website should have a responsive web design that provides the better, faster and smarter user experience.

Mobile user experience is not only about fitting long texts and images to a small mobile screen. There is much behind it, including speed optimization, easy navigation, visible call-to-actions, and much more. 

If you need any help in website mobile optimization, the team at WishDesk is always here to make your platform responsive. 

It’s time to reduce bounce rate on your website and gain conversions!

Although you can never take full control over bounce, we hope this article will help you reduce bounce rate on your website and increase conversions. Which tip will you implement on your site today?  

Don’t lose visitors to your website. A team of web developers at Wishdesk is always here to help you make the best of your platform. Contact us if you have any questions or need help regarding your bounce rate.