It’s frustrating when you work so hard on your site and visitor just leave your page like they have seen a ghost. You have also faced this situation. Right?
Now, let me tell you something – one of the main things that all successful sites have is a low bounce rate. A low bounce rate means that your readers are sticking to your site and not leaving it as soon as they visit it.
You may think the lower the bounce rate, the better. And, yes you’re right. Having a low bounce rate shows people are loving your site and content enough that they think it’s worth their time.
Chances are that you’re already familiar with bounce rates. If you’re not, then don’t worry, next you are going to learn what is bounce rate and why is it so important (in more detail).
What’s Bounce Rate?
So, you might be wondering what this bounce rate thing actually is, especially if you’re a newbie. But before we get into the actual meaning, we must know in what ways it is calculated. According to Google –
A bounce in Google Analytics happens when someone visits your web page and then exits immediately without triggering another request.
Or in simple words – when you visit a web page and then exit without staying on the web page then a bounce will happen. But, there’s one thing people misunderstand always about the bounce rate.
A bounce also happens when your readers don’t interact or engage with your site’s content. This means – even if a reader stays on a page and reads it completely but doesn’t engage (click anywhere on your site) it will be seen as a bounce.
Sites or blogs which have single page content will always have a higher bounce rate than sites having multi-page content. For example – Buzzfeed will always have a much lower bounce rate than blogs like this one.
So, How much bounce rate is good?
There isn’t an exact answer to this question but it depends on what kind of website you own or the niche you’re working in. It’s just like one size doesn’t fit all. However, there are some benchmarks by website type.
On average, the bounce rates depend on website types –
- B2B websites – 25% to 55%
- eCommerce & retail websites – 20% to 45%
- Lead Generation websites – 30% to 55%
- Non-eCommerce Content websites – 35% to 60%
- Landing Pages – 60% to 90%
- Blogs, Directories & Portals – 65% to 90%
Why is a low bounce rate important?
I’ve said it almost at the start of every paragraph – having a low bounce rate is important. But till now I haven’t told you why it’s important. Right? So now, let’s talk about it.
The bounce rate of your site tells how much your readers are interested in your content. If your bounce rate is too high you can assume they won’t come back to your site again on their own.
A low bounce rate is also a sign of low conversion. If you can’t convert your readers into customers, how are you thinking of even earning money from your site? If your visitors don’t stay on your site they obviously won’t buy anything from you!
Now that you understand the importance of having a lower bounce rate. Let’s learn some ways in which you can reduce your bounce rate –
9 Working Ways To Reduce Bounce Rate
#1 Improve Your Website’s Speed
When we are going to reduce the bounce rate of your site, we will obviously start with the speed of your site! If your website is too slow to load then your visitors will be tired of waiting and exiting before the page is loaded. This increases the bounce rate.
Everyone’s like this, we don’t want too much for any site to load and exit if it doesn’t open in 5 to 6 seconds. According to Kissmetrics – Most consumers (or readers) expect a page to be loaded in 2 seconds.
We people have an attention span of a fish. What you should do is – reduce your site’s loading speed. Having less page loading time is important. But how would you do it? No need to worry, we’re having all the answers for you.
There are a lot of ways to speed up your site (much easier if you’re on WordPress.) Some ways to speed up your site are – using a CDN, choosing a good host, optimising images, etc. Here’s the full guide on improving your website’s speed.
#2 Keep Your Content Fresh
Would you like to read an article that’s 3 years old and which has no latest information? The answer would be NO (if you want your site to be successful). Nobody likes to read something that’s old and of no use.
Not only do your readers hate old content but also Google hates them. It is true that Google counts content freshness as one of the ranking factors. Having fresh content is as important as having useful content! One without the other is of no use.
The best way to keep your content fresh is to update your site content regularly. It’s pretty simple. Take any blog post of your blog – makes some changes, add useful information, add images, etc. And, update its date. (So people will know it’s fresh.)
Also, just don’t update for the sake of updating. Your visitor should benefit from your content and it should be your main aim. When people will find your content is the latest they will stay and your bounce rate will decrease.
#3 Make Use of Internal Linking
Internal linking is the easiest way to make your readers stay on your site. It’s also one of the best SEO practices you can do on your site. It is good for SEO and good for lowering your bounce rate. How? Let’s see.
For those who don’t know about Internal Linking – It is to link an existing post from your blog from one blog post. Or, in simple words – you’re sending your visitors (or readers) from one resource on your site to another. Easy and Simple.
Using internal links is a thing which you should not be ignoring. It’s very easy to add internal links to your blog posts if you’re using WordPress. (Everything is easy in WordPress.) You just need to click on the “insert/edit” link option and link to your existing post.
But, make sure you only link to posts which are related or useful. Linking just for the sake of linking will be harmful to your site’s SEO. When done without any mistakes – Internal Linking gives great results.
#4 Don’t Use Too Many Popups
Isn’t it irritating when you’re reading an amazing blog post and suddenly a popup comes out of nowhere! For me it’s the thing that makes me leave that blog without thinking, your readers also find pop-ups annoying just like you. (I know you also hate them.)
It’s ok when you are using some popups to get more subscribers. But when there are more than 2 popups and one exit intent popup, it becomes annoying. If you’re showing a popup to visitors just when they come, you’re doing it wrong.
An irritating popup would be the last thing that a visitor wants to see when he’s searching for something. Of course, popups work like magic! But putting too many popups will surely make you lose some visitors. Which increases the bounce rate.
If you’re thinking of working in the long run, you should limit yourself to 2 popups. Popups when created keeping in mind the user experience are one of the best ways to get more email subscribers. This will also help to reduce your bounce rate.
#5 Create Great and Useful Content
Why would someone come to your site in the first place? It’s not that hard to answer – to seek a solution for their problem or learn something. These two are the main reason why someone visits your site (or blog).
Now, if your site doesn’t have content that either solves your visitor’s problems or teaches them something, why would they stay on your site? They will exit from your site and that will be counted as a bounce.
You would have heard “Content is King!” almost a million times, some debate over it but the content is surely important. There’s no doubt about it and will never be. No one will ever visit a site it doesn’t benefit them. Unless you’re just wasting your time.
Like you are here for finding some ways to reduce your bounce rate (and I hope you’re enjoying this article till now). Make something that your visitors want and they will not go away from your site and will come again and again.
#6 Open External Links In New Window
Linking out to other sites is great. When you link out to other high authority sites in your niche, it makes your content look more trustable. It’s good for SEO. But it has a drawback – it takes your visitor away from your site to the other site.
And when your visitor gets away from your site without engaging that’s a bounce. But there’s a solution for everything. (Which is pretty simple.) You just need to make sure your external links open in a new tab.
External links are just the opposite of internal links, in case you don’t know. I also make sure that every external link on this blog opens in a new tab. However, some say that opening all external links in a new tab is bad.
As a site (or blog) owner the decision is yours to make. Making your links open in a new tab is simple when you’re using WordPress. You just need to click on “Open link in a new tab” and you’re good to go.
#7 Improve The Design Of Your Website
Having a great web design is as important as having great content. The first thing that a visitor sees is the design of your site. You need both great content and design to make your visitor stick to your site.
People don’t like sites which look like they were made in the 90s and are hard to navigate. There’s a thing called user experience (UX) which is very important. Your site must be easy to navigate and must have a clean design.
You can get themes for any blogging platform like Joomla, Drupal, etc. under 100$. There is no need to get a custom website to achieve success. After all, you won’t want to spend thousands of dollars on a custom design. Would You?
There are a lot of good-looking WordPress themes. Selecting a WordPress theme isn’t that hard. You should stick to a clean and minimal design, it’s much better than having a bad design. It will surely help to reduce your bounce rate.
#8 Make Sure Your Content Is Easy To Read
You can put on great content and have a nice design but it won’t matter if your visitors can’t read what you have written. What’s the point of putting in hours when no one can understand what you write? I won’t read what I can’t understand easily.
If your readers (or visitors) can’t easily read what you have written, they will surely close the tab in which your site is opened. Which increases your bounce rate. Most of people only scan for what’s written before reading the whole thing.
Now to reduce your bounce rate you should do 2 things to improve the readability. The two things you should do are – improve your copy and use the right font-size combination. Let me tell you how to do them.
Your copy can be improved with a plugin like Yoast SEO. Score more than 70+ on the Flesch Reading Ease test and you’re good. For fonts – use easy to read fonts style with their size being 14 to 18 pixels. That’s all to it. Easy to do and won’t take much time!
#9 Focus On Your Site’s Structure (Mainly For Mobiles)
We all know that having a responsive website is important. But what’s more important is having mobile responsive sites. More than 52% of the internet’s traffic comes from mobile phones. We all love our smartphones. (Is it even a question?)
It’s easy to make your site structure amazing for desktops. But most people just ignore doing the same for mobiles. Mobiles are surely going to dominate the internet’s traffic share as voice search is increasing daily. I like the Google Assistant!
Your site should look flawless on the mobile screen. If you don’t have a mobile responsive site then half of your visitors will exit and thus increase your bounce rate. And the no. of mobile users is also increasing. So, think about it from now on.
There are also a lot of mobile responsive themes. Again, It’s better to have a quality theme rather than spend huge bucks for a custom website which looks good on mobile. Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly test tool for checking mobile responsiveness.
Final Thoughts…
I hope these tips helped you in reducing the bounce rate of your site. There are a lot of ways to reduce your bounce rate. You would know by now that having a low bounce rate is good for your site.
So, apply all these tips and I’m sure that your bounce rate will go down. You should apply what you’ve learnt else it’s of no use.
Also, if you liked this post and found it useful, please share it. It’ll help in the growth of this blog. (Every share counts. Thanks a lot.)
Now, I’ve some questions for you – What are your thoughts on these tips? Which tips you found the most helpful? Do you know any other way to reduce your bounce rate? Let us know in the comments below.