Bounce rate is definitely not understood properly by most people out there. If you see bounce rate as being the same thing as exit rate, you should not read this article. You should first understand what bounce rate actually is, why it counts, why it is not always a bad thing to have a low bounce rate and everything else related to the actual metric.
Remember that low bounce rate is not always a bad thing. For some sites it is not at all a good metric to consider. However, for others, like blogs, it is something that counts and you want bounce rate to be as low as possible. Here are 10 ways to do that.
1. Improve Website Structure
The visitor that does not find what he believes should be there will simply go to another site. For instance, most sites have a contact page. Do you have one? If you do not, there is a huge chance that your bounce rate would be lowered if you just create one. The same thing goes for the navigation menu. It needs to be intuitive and include the categories that the visitor expects. Also, the structure should be similar to that of the competition.
We understand your need to be unique but you do not have to reinvent the wheel. The structure of your website should be similar to other similar sites because you offer the visitor what he/she expects.
2. You Have Poor Website Design
Your new site needs to look great. This includes how the content is presented. Readability and graphical treatments also have to be great. The target audience has to be taken into account when you create your design. Improper design can be seen as a sign that the service or business is low quality. You do not want that to happen.
3. Reduce Website Loading Times
Nowadays this is a lot more important than what you might think. Internet speed is constantly growing and site visitors expect the pages to load fast. When this does not happen, they simply leave. You will have a really high bounce rate when your page takes 10 seconds or more to load. To make matters even worse, this will also hurt your search engine ranking positioning. See what you can do to lower website loading times and never forget this part of your site optimization.
4. Segment Your Information
You need to make sure that the content you offer is properly segmented. That is due to the fact that you never actually know what the visitor wants. Sometimes the visitor is just interested in one part of the site. He needs to instantly realize where he can get it. In the event that the information is not properly segmented, he might miss it and you might miss on a sale.
5. Move Your Ads
Ad placement is something that not many people consider these days. It does have an effect on bounce rates. It is a really good idea to avoid standard ad units as much as possible. The publisher wants to do all that he can to make money. However, the visitor knows the ads and does not actually like it when there are too many above the fold.
6. Improve Color Contrast
This is almost always necessary. There are many studies out there that highlight proper color combinations and showcase when some contrasts are really bad. Patterns and colors are used to draw attention towards page parts that are important.
7. Eliminate Distractions
There are so many different intrusions and distractions that appear on web sites. For instance, how many sites do you see every week that have videos or audio files starting as you visit? That is something that is really bad and that will annoy visitors. The same thing goes for pop-ups, which should be completely avoided.
8. Present Related Content On Your Pages
Do you have articles that offer more information about the topic that the visitor sees? If so, why not tell him/her about it? This automatically reduces bounce rates and gives you more pageviews. In addition, it can be a pretty large part of the entire tunnel funnel conversion technique, in the event that you use something like this.
Always interlink pages that offer more information for the visitors. This makes your on-page SEO optimization stronger and this will increase search engine rankings. We are quite sure that this is something that you want to see happen.
9. Make Sure That External Links Open In A New Window
Such a simple concept can help out a lot more than what you might believe at first glance. It is something that is often overlooked, especially when dealing with blogs. That can easily be done with HTML or through the platform that you might be using.
10. Properly Use Your Search Box
As your site grows and you have a lot of content, it is a guarantee that the search box will become necessary. Unfortunately, there are still some sites out there that do not actually have these items. It is a mistake. By simply adding the search box, you will lower the bounce rate. However, you have to make sure that it is arranged in a region where it is seen by people.
One thing that should be added is that you have to make sure that the people can actually find articles on your website. There are a lot of webmasters out there that simply use a Google search box that is not properly coded. Make sure that you have your results appear first if you use a Google Search Box.
Conclusions
All the tips above will help you and there are various other things that can be done. Take the necessary time to focus on lowering bounce rate but remember why you are doing it. If you have a really good conversion with the products you promote, you will most likely not need to make many changes. Think about what is best for your site and for the visitors.
