How To Reduce Bounce Rate: 22 Effective Steps
What’s bounce rate? A huge Google ranking factor and it’s defined as the percentage of single page visits to your site. This term describes when a user will go to your site, visit only one page and then click away to another website. The goal is to reduce bounce rate.
Now not all bounces are bad. Sometimes a user may visit your site, get exactly what they need on that page, and then happily leave with a smile on their face.
Even though there are good and bad bounces, the goal is to have the least amount of bounces possible.
A high bounce rate can mean that your website is causing poor user experiences.
So it’s crucial you know how to reduce bounce rate to improve your conversions, SEO rankings, and visitor experience.
After looking at a variety of factors for our own website, we have compiled a list of 22 steps that will reduce your bounce rate immediately.
Steps To Reduce Bounce Rate
1. Invest in a great design for your website
Your website is likely where your customers will spend most of their time with your business.
They see one of your ads or find you in a Google search and are directed to your site.
I can tell you with confidence that if your website isn’t up to par, your bounce rates are going to increase. If you can’t even get your website together, how can they trust you to satisfy their needs?
A simple yet effective design can make a world of difference for the user experience. In fact, simple web design converts best.
2. Don’t use pop-ups
Pop-ups almost always make the user experience worse.
Pop-ups have a bad track record of causing viruses and taking you off the page you were just on, what a headache.
Some businesses will use pop-ups to stop users from leaving their site and make one last attempt to convert them to a lead.
I would recommend just avoiding them all together. Your quality content should be keeping the user on the page.
You don’t want your business to be associated with pesky, annoying pop-ups.
3. Improve loading speeds
Time is money. You know it, I know it and anyone that has ever run a business knows it.
In this case, the time it takes your page to load can cost you leads.
Most users will leave a page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.
It would be a shame to lose customers day after day over an easily fixable 3 second-delay. Follow the guide we created showing you how to make your website load faster and you’ll be good.
Even if your pages load crazy fast, it never hurts to do some research to improve.
4. Make searching for things on your site a prominent feature
A lot of people that visit your website will have a goal in mind.
Whether that goal be to learn more about your company or buy a specific product, they need to have an easy way to find what they’re looking for.
Making a search box easy to find on your website can stop a user from leaving. Most businesses will include a search box in the upper right hand corner of each page.
If someone has to dig deep in your website to find what they’re looking for, they’re not going to trust that you’re a reliable business.
It’s all about removing friction for visitors and making the customer’s life more convenient will ensure that they have a positive experience.
5. Simplify your navigation
Your navigation is the journey a user will go on when they search for something on your page.
The goal of your header navigation should be to take the user exactly where they desire.
Nothing is more frustrating than looking for something simple on a site and going on a convoluted click-journey to get what should have been a simple answer.
Utilizing a simple navigation in the header will absolutely reduce bounce rate.
Chances are you’re not the only company that can answer the user’s questions. Failing to get the user where they need to be right away will push them toward your competitor in a hurry.
6. Offer translations for international traffic
Knowing the demographics that visit your site is so important.
You may be surprised to find your website attracts a lot of international traffic.
A lot of your bounces could be coming from people that can’t understand your content.
Making your website accessible to a wider audience can reduce bounce rate. Facebook does a nice job of this by having these language options in the footer.
An easy way to translate your site to a foreign audience is to download a translating software. This type of technology will take your site and translate it into the language of the person viewing it.
I’m guessing you haven’t even considered the possibility of attracting international traffic. In the end, it pays off to check the type of traffic you’re attracting every once in a while. Especially when you rely on making money from website traffic.
7. Revise your product pages
Your product pages or landing pages are designed to sell specific products.
The information on those pages can cause an increase in bounce rates—too much information can be overwhelming and not enough information can be off putting.
You want to make sure that your pages offer the price, description of the product, picture of the product and any other relevant information the user will need. Be informative and concise.
For example, if you’re selling clothing, you should include a size chart that will make sense to the user.
Adding customer reviews to the page can also help. People want to know what they’re going to buy has left others satisfied.
We have a post that offers more insight on what makes great product landing pages for more guidance.
8. Create a compelling C-T-A
A C-T-A is a Call-To-Action. Basically this is the part of your page that should convince users to take further action on your website.
Only 47% of websites have a clear C-T-A that users can find in 3 seconds or less.
Many businesses will include a C-T-A on the homepage of their site that takes them directly to the product they’re looking for.
Take our website for example. On our home page there are two easy to find C-T-A’s. There is a “Become a client” button and a “Contact” button. When you click on each it takes the user directly to a form where they will put in their information that connects them to us.
C-T-A’s will take the user directly to the page they’re interested in. This way there is no chance for the user to lose interest because they can’t find what they were looking for.
9. Make 404 pages more than just error pages
A 404 or error page is what the customer will be sent to if the enter an outdated or nonexistent URL.
This doesn’t have to be a dead end and shouldn’t guarantee an increase in bounce rates.
Instead, rework your error pages to offer helpful information that will keep the user on your site.
Add an option for the customer to search for something else directly from that page. Or provide your top 5 most visited pages.
You can also add recommendations for products similar to what they were originally searching for.
Taking this extra step shows your customers you care about them. You are going out of your way to offer alternatives to a failed search.
10. Make sure your site works on multiple browsers
Your website will appear different across different browsers. The way your site looks and operates on Chrome will not be the same as Firefox.
Collect data on your bounce rates for each browser and compare them. It’s always a good idea to conduct user tests on your website. You then need to take it one step further and run regular user tests on every browser.
This goes back to the idea of making sure your website is accessible for everyone that will be viewing your page.
It is a real pain to have to switch browsers because you know a website doesn’t work properly on the one you regularly use. That’s also a bold assumption that people will switch browsers just to view your site.
11. Make your website mobile friendly
It’s no secret that more people are relying on their mobile devices as their primary source for the internet.
Nowadays 57% of US online traffic is coming from mobile devices. And mobile users also have even lower patience than desktop users.
All websites look and operate differently on mobile devices. You can’t just hope that your site will work on a mobile device.
You have to design your website to be mobile friendly.
Once your mobile-friendly site has been up and running for a while, take a look at the total pages visited per visitor.
Then troubleshoot until you start to see improvement.
A website that is smooth across desktop, laptop, tablet, and phone will reduce bounce rate.
12. Check “double meaning” keywords
Now that your website is refined, you want people to be able to find it when they do a Google search.
Any keyword you choose to use for SEO should be relevant to your business.
However, sometimes your keywords might not be attracting the traffic you intended.
When you look at who is causing bounces, you might find that the keywords you’re using are attracting people that aren’t interested in your business at all.
Say for example you’re a craft store that is selling paint brush sets. You’ve set your keyword to be “brush sets”. You go to check your bounce rates and you see a lot of young adult women are causing bounces. You then realize that a lot of people are confusing your business for selling makeup brushes instead of paint brushes.
Make sure that the keywords you use are specific enough that they won’t have a double meaning.
It might not be anything you’re doing wrong, just an inconvenient misunderstanding.
(For more on this, check out our awesome keyword research guide.)
13. Update your content
If you’ve been doing this for a while, you probably have a lot of content on your site.
Some of your bounces may be coming from users that find your older content and feel it is outdated.
Going through your older content and either updating or removing it will make a major difference.
We suggest doing a Google search for “site:yourwebsite.com Year”. So for us this would look like “site:robbenmedia.com 2018”.
This allows us to easily find our older posts and revise them.
You especially want to check out your highest traffic posts. People found value from these posts and you don’t want that to stop because you failed to update outdated examples and information.
Blogging tip: Refrain from using seasonal holiday posts or specific years in your posts to help your content last longer.
14. Focus on your copywriting
Quality content is easily one of the most important aspects of any business. This is why our PPC agency focuses on copywriting.
It is important to keep the reader in mind when you write any content, but especially for your blog posts.
Good copywriting on landing pages has a few characteristics:
- Informational
- Concise
- Conversational
- Personable
Writing that takes forever to get to the point will guarantee to increase bounce rates.
Good writing will also convert leads and bring users back to your page.
15. Write in short paragraphs
The human attention span has decreased by a quarter in the past 15 years. Wild, right!?
Long paragraphs are an immediate turn off for people.
We physically no longer have the attention span to sift through paragraphs and paragraphs of mass information.
Short paragraphs make it easy for the user to find the information they need.
It also makes the post look more organized and less daunting.
I know when I see a post that has long paragraphs of pure text, I’m less likely to keep reading.
Shorter paragraphs will invite the reader in and encourage them to continue returning to your page.
16. Improve your copy’s readability
We use WordPress to publish our blog posts.
We have a plugin called Yoast that checks the readability of our post before we publish it.
Readability consists of a few factors:
- Sentence length
- Paragraph length
- Passive voice usage
- How easy or hard your text is to read
- Number of transition words
Before we publish a post our goal is to make sure our readability score is good and shows green. Green means that it’s good to go and will be a pleasant read.
Better readability reduced bounce rate and also encourages people to continue reading your content.
17. Split longer posts into a series
Sometimes you just have a lot of information that you want to fit in one post.
When you publish an extremely long post, you run the risk of losing the interest of your audience half way through the post.
Instead of publishing one long post, posting a series of posts can be an alternative option.
A series of posts will break up all the information you wanted to share into posts that are easier to read.
This option will actually offer even more benefits than just keeping the reader on the page.
Series can build anticipation because the reader does want all of the information, just over a span of days or weeks. Since the reader is now intrigued by what you have to say, they will keep returning to your page to get the next chapter of information.
So, not only are you reducing your bounce rates, you’re also increasing repeat visitors. That’s a win-win.
18. Offer content recommendations on your posts
A great way to keep people on your page is to offer them more of your related posts.
You can add a plug-in to your website that allows you to put your other posts with the current post the user is reading.
Some businesses will include some related posts at the very end of the copy, some will put it on the sidebar and some will include related posts at the end of each section.
Where you decide to put them is really up to you.
This allows you to offer the reader more information related to what they originally searched without leaving your page and finding another business to give them what they want.
Keeping people on your page is the ultimate goal to increase on-site time.
19. Add more internal links
Internal links are links to your own website pages and posts. Writers use them to provide extra information on a topic.
For example, whenever I write a post that talks about Facebook paid advertising, I’ll link one of our posts about paid advertising instead of using another businesses post about paid advertising.
It’s better for the reader to get information from you than your competitors.
Using internal links also takes the user to another page on your site, taking away the opportunity for them to become a bounce.
20. Make all external links open in a new window
Bounces can come from your external links.
If you don’t set them to open in a new window, the user will be directed away from your page. That makes them a bounce.
Why would you willingly send the user away from your page when you don’t have to?
Directing the user to a new page also discourages the user from returning to your site.
If you use WordPress like us, it is super easy to avoid this by opening your external links open in a new tab.
All you do is link the page to the words you want associated with it then click on link options. From there all you have to do is check the box that says open in a new tab.
21. Reduce your broken links
Broken or dead links can be caused by a variety of factors.
It is important to regularly check all of your pages to make sure the links still work. When pages on your site don’t work, your bounce rates will increase.
There are sites and programs that you can download that will identify and fix broken links on your site.
Implementing one of those options is convenient and often worth it if you know you have an older site with a massive broken links problem.
You should also check the external links you use in your posts to make sure none of them are broken. Leading a user to a page that no longer works can also cause a bounce.
Having no broken links is ideal but reducing the amount to as few as possible will do the trick.
22. Let your customers speak for you
It’s no secret that prospects appreciate seeing other customers’ experiences with your company.
Stats like above and quotes allow you to tell a min-story to build trust and makes what they have to say more interesting and personal.
A wise move to reduce bounce rate and take your customer testimonials a step further is to make them into full on success stories. You can do this by adding a page to your site that is dedicated to what your customers have to say about you, then linking to it from the shortened, mini-testimonials.
So you start with just quoting what the customer had to say on a page but the goal is to embellish it and share their entire journey in a new page that is linked from the shortened version.
Don’t feel uncomfortable about bragging about your company. Prove to the visitors on your site that you will take them to where they need to be.
Conclusion
There are so many different possibilities to reduce bounce rate and those pesky one-page visiting users. You just need to be willing to put in a little extra time to try some things out.
You now have 22 different solutions under your belt.
Take our advice and know that when your bounce rates decrease, your business grows.
