A website’s bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who arrive at a page on your website, and immediately leave without exploring further. You can derive it by dividing the total number of site visits by the number of those who only visit one page.
What does bounce rate mean?
It is a web traffic measurement phrase using internet marketing. It reflects the percentage of visitors who join the site and then exit without viewing any more pages on the same site. To be more specific, it’s the proportion of visitors that leave your site without doing the desired action. It can be anything from clicking away to another page, watching a video, or selecting “read more” in the final part of your article. Moreover, Google Analytics defines bounce rate as the percentage of single interaction visits to your site, so it means establishing and maintaining an online presence is essential for every business. In terms of organizations, bounce rate measures the percentage of visitors who depart your site quickly after entering without looking at any other pages.
A simple example
A user checks your website to read a blog post. Overall, he devotes five minutes to your content. I’m sure he enjoys your writing. Nevertheless, he leaves your site as soon as he reaches the end of the blog article means your bounce rate rises.
What can we learn from this example? The user found your information interesting, but not so much so that he felt forced to look around the rest of your website. Is this a good sign for your company’s image? Not really.
Let’s take another example
Another user arrives at your site to read a blog article. An external link with the name “A” is all that he takes notice of after skimming over your content. Five minutes later, he returns to the homepage and pursues its materials.
Your content was used by the user as a gateway to the content he was most interested in. It appears that he spent more time on a different website than yours.
Both previous examples show that the user left your site to visit another site or left completely which is affecting your bounce rate.
There are situations when a high bounce rate can be a sign of a negative experience for the user. The user arrives at the page, and either the page did not offer the material that they were anticipating, or they were underwhelmed by something else, such as a webpage that was not responsive to the user’s device. However, a high bounce rate may also be the result of a great experience for the user.
But what actually causes a high bounce rate?
For illustration’s purpose, let’s assume a user is looking for a recipe’s ingredient measurement. He clicks through one of the search results, which takes them to a website that displays the necessary ingredient list right away. They obtain it and then leave it from that specific website.
A good user experience is demonstrated by the site’s relatively high single-engagement visits. The visitor was able to locate the information that they were seeking immediately, after which they exited the site.
The best-case scenario is that some of those site visitors with a high single-engagement visit will save the page to their bookmarks for their future use. Other visitors may remember the site after some time has passed and go back to it by searching for it by its name on Google.
What’s the reasonable number?
There is no such thing as a low bounce rate when it comes to web traffic. Yet, a lower bounce rate is preferable (we don’t mean 0% because that’s unrealistic).
The device used by the visitor influences the bounce rate as well. For most organizations, the average bounce rate is between 50 and 70 percent. Desktop bounce rates are around 10% lower than mobile phone bounce rates.
In other words, if your bounce rate is less than 23%, you’re doing an excellent job. If your bounce rate rises to 90%, you may need to change your strategies.
With so many businesses competing for online visibility, engagement is always the greatest path to success.
But what if you have many visitors who leave without interacting with anything?
A bounce rate reduction approach is an excellent technique to maximize your internet traffic and direct more of your digital marketing leads to conversion.
What’s the point of reducing the bounce rate?
When you make a lasting impact with your first impression, you keep your customers. These visitors are eager to learn more about your brand, your website, and your content. They’re getting closer to a sale with each new page they look at. In addition, you have more time to get to know them. Visitors who spend more time on your site are more likely to return. As a result, it leads to increase revenue, brand recognition, and customer loyalty.
With the same digital strategy and money, a business can increase conversion rates by implementing a good approach to lower the bounce rate. It’s a fast and easy method to broaden your horizons.
How to decrease the percentage of visitors who immediately leave your website and increase your bounce rate?
After you’ve determined which pages on your site have the highest bounce rate, it’s time to work on lowering the overall percentage of visitors that immediately leave your site. Finding out why visitors are leaving your site quickly is the first step in reducing your bounce rate. If you lack this understanding, it won’t matter how many different tactics you use because you won’t have much success.
Main reasons why visitors leave a website
- The user was unable to trace the information that they need.
- The user was successful in finding what they were seeking, nevertheless, they were lost, so they just left.
- The website is difficult to navigate.
Potential solutions for reducing your bounce rate
You can lower your bounce rates by writing material in formats that are simple and easy to read:
- Make use of subheadings in order to divide up the various sections of your content.
- Draft paragraphs that are concise, direct, and to the point.
- Contain bullet points in your explanation of the steps, benefits, and other relevant topics.
- Create visual breaks in the flow of your writing using photos, graphics, and images.
- Use examples to clarify complex ideas.
- Place an interactive table of contents at the beginning of the document so that users may navigate directly to the required section.
10 ways to reduce bounce rate
Here are 10 proven ways to reduce bounce rate:
Suggest similar articles
It’s possible that the visitor wasn’t interested in the information that was given on a webpage at all. You can use a plugin called “related posts” to suggest further posts that could be more beneficial to your readers.
Engage users with targeted content
Keep in mind that not all bounces have a negative outcome. A user could read your post, discover that it provides exactly what they were looking for, and then leave. This is typical for the format of resource sections and blog postings.
However, this will not help your site’s bounce rate or conversions. You want to present these users with the offer that is most appropriate to them at this time.
If a user clicks on a link to a blog post on cooking, for instance, the relevant offer should be a cookbook. Showing customized content will assist you in lowering your bounce rate, increasing engagement, and producing more conversions.
Give users other activities
A direct “call to action” must be existing on each and every page of your website (CTA) for example: make a purchase (either digital or physical), sign up for your email list, share your post, or fill out a contact form.
Search-intent-optimized content
Bounce rates are also significantly affected by search engine result pages (SERPs). When a user selects one search result above another, it indicates that they are interested in a particular topic. They will leave the search if they do not locate the answer or solution quickly enough.
It’s time to speed up your website
Increasing the speed of your site is one of the simplest things you can do to reduce your bounce rate. Users are typically in a hurry, and they make a decision regarding whether or not to continue using a website within the initial few seconds of their visit. People can think your website is broken if it takes a long time to load, or they might just give up waiting and go to another site.
Mobile-optimize your site
Many consumers browse using their mobile devices. They won’t waste their time trying to figure out how to visit your website if it looks like it was designed for a desktop computer and squeezed onto a mobile screen.
Make sure that your site can be easily navigated on a mobile device. To provide a superior experience for mobile users, you might want to think about developing landing pages that are accessible exclusively via mobile devices or integrating features such as click-to-call and click-to-scroll buttons.
Increase readability
Most of the information on a website is still conveyed by text, despite the attention-grabbing nature of images and video. Instead of focusing solely on aesthetics, remember that good reading is more important than flashy graphics.
For instance, while this site is visually appealing, it is quite difficult to navigate. Low-contrast and lightweight links are used for the navigation buttons. On top of this, the site’s “Best viewed on desktop” banner has poor contrast and is difficult to read. For mobile users, this all results in a bad user experience.
Provide directions for users (help them find the way)
Even though the content of your page might be just what the visitor is looking for, if they must scroll more than 80 percent of the way down the page to access it, there is a good chance they will leave your site.
Make sure the information you give provides an answer to the query or gets to the point in a timely manner. If the page or blog post you’re working on contains numerous sections, you might want to add a table of contents or a button that allows readers to navigate directly to the most engaging portion.
A good illustration of this can be found on many food blogs in the form of an in-depth breakdown and accompanying photo documentation of the recipe creation process. While that material might be fascinating to some people, the vast majority are probably just looking for the recipe to use. Bloggers that focus on recipes frequently include a “Jump to recipe” button on each of their posts.
Headlines and page design split-tested
It’s possible that the visitor’s objective is met by the information on your website, but the headline or call-to-action may not communicate this effectively.
Because of this, conducting split tests on the various aspects of your website is really crucial. A/B split testing is when two copies of the same page are created, but one version has different headlines, copy, graphics, or call to actions (CTAs). Then you check to see which version is more successful.
You also have the option of creating multiple landing pages, each of which can target a specific audience, area, or keyword. You can determine a user’s location and then present them with a landing page that is appropriate for their region. Displaying content to consumers in their native language, as well as in the cultural context of their origin, dramatically improves the user experience and may help reduce bounce rates.
Place CTAs strategically
The majority of visitors will decide within the first couple of seconds whether they like a website or not. You may maximize the effectiveness of your website by providing a prompt description of the service you are offering.
Also, ensure that your call to action is clear and meaningful. When you give users false information; it will result in a negative user experience, which is the primary cause of a high bounce rate.
Wrap up
At Lyla digital marketing agency top recommendations for lowering the percentage of visitors that immediately leave your website have been offered. You are now able to keep your visitors satisfied and your bounce rate low, if you tailor the content of your site to the goals of the visitors.
