What is Bounce Rate?

Bounce rate is the percentage of visits to a website where the visitor only looked at one page and left without interacting with any other pages. In most cases visitors who "bounce" don’t click on a menu item, a ‘read more’ link or any other internal links on the page.

Imagine if you had a store and there's a lot of people passing by your door everyday. Some of them look at the products from outside and other show more interest and approach your entrance.

But something feels off. A high percentage of those visitors don't get past the front door. Why?

The question of why people bounce from your site is the center of a strategy to reduce the website's bounce rate. This indicator, which displays what percentage of total visits leave your website right away vs. visits to one page before leaving.

In other words, bounce rate counts how many leads feel engaged enough to get closer to your brand, but not enough to interact with you.

Tracking and improving this Key Performance Indicator (KPI) on your company’s website (especially when it leads to more clients and sales) should be one of the main goals in your marketing plan.

A Good Reason to Have a Lower Bounce Rate

As we explained, A bounced visitor to your webpage is a missed opportunity. When websites have a high bounce rate visitors are entering your webpage without interacting with any links.

When optimizing your website for conversions, it’s way more important to engage people than just have a large number of page views. There's not much value in having a million page visits with no conversion method or plan in place.

A good bounce rate will ensure you’re realizing the most from your advertising dollars. Optimizing your site can help, but companies also need to know how to improve their bounce rate in order to stay on top of this ever-changing industry.

When someone first lands on your web page they should be interested enough to stay and explore your services or products. In addition, each new page they visit should inform them enough to turn into a conversion for your business.

Plus, you have more time to show them who you are and make your brand memorable. Users that stick around on the site for a while are more likely to come back often, creating a habit of coming back frequently which leads to sales and greater customer loyalty.

9 Ways To Reduce Bounce Rate on Your Website

Bounce rate is calculated by percentage and the general rule for analyzing you bounce rate is the following:

80%+ is very bad

70 – 80% is poor

50 – 70% is average

30 – 50% is excellent

A bounce rate of 20% or below likely means that the website in question has duplicate code, incorrectly implemented events tracking or too many third-party plugins.

If your bounce rate is high, then it could be the result of many reasons such as slow load time, poor navigation, bad design or webpage usability is not optimized. It's worth noting that not all data might be available to find correct causes for higher than average bounce rates.

Let’s explore how to improve your bounce rate.

1 - Improve Your Website Speed

Slow page speeds drive away visitors.

In our fast-paced, technology-driven world, consumers don't have the patience for websites that take an aggravating amount of time to load.

Therefore, they expect pages to load in two seconds or less and not continue to run even if it takes three seconds or more. This is why 47% of people will abandon a page that doesn't display immediately on their computers and devices.

Inspect your pages loading time by using tools like GTMetrics.com to show you any page load issues.

Image optimization, Content Delivery Networks, caching and faster hosting providers are sure fire ways to make your site load faster.

2 - Improve The Experience for Visitors

Your website’s user experience is the overall feeling of a visitor while they are interacting with your site, and how it’s displayed. Good UX involves making an easy-to-navigate web page that also looks pleasing to the eye.

Your website should offer visitors a clear, seamless experience in navigating from one part of the site to another. Don’t confuse visitors by making them guess where they are and how to move around your site.

In this guide, you will find a variety of tips all relating to the user experience. Keep in mind that it is the overall feeling which your website creates for someone when they use it; everything is part of their user experience.

3 - Ensure Your Website is Responsive to Mobile Screen Sizes

With ever-evolving technology, your website visitors may be using a variety of devices with different screen sizes.

Developing a website that is compatible with most devices will result in less bounce events due to the ability for the site to change its design according to screen variations, making navigation easy and content clear.

4 - Optimize Your Landing Page Structure

Landing pages that convert well have the basics down. No matter what you want your customer to do on your website, landing page design is universally designed to help persuade.

No longer confined to a single form of persuasion or to a specific campaign type, landing pages can be utilized in any circumstance and for any possible end goal. You’ll notice that there are fundamental elements of landing-page structure that are found in almost every site regardless of the company's industry or niche.

There is no one perfect landing page design, but every high-converting one will most likely include these 5 core elements:

• A hero image or video
• A unique selling proposition (USP)
• The benefits of your offering
• Some form of social proof
• A single conversion goal (or your call to action)

5 - Use Interactive Content and Videos

Videos can grab more attention than text or images and should therefore be placed prominently on websites. With video you are able to capture the users attention more quickly and keep them on your page.

In addition, utilizing interactive content can improve your sites bounce rate. Some examples include interactive e-books, infographics, quizzes and lookbooks. These website design features can be used on your landing pages to build deeper connections and make them stay longer. Interaction always keeps engagement high.

6 - Let Your Customers Speak for You

Display the testimonials of your product or service from third-party websites or in your general presentation.

Consumers are getting smarter every day, and quickly evaluate potential vendors for reliability. After assessing the offer, they examine other vendors to find out how reliable they are.

Trying a new company's services is frightening because the visitor might not know how good your business is and what kind of reputation you have earned.

The bounce rate of your website can be improved by featuring awards and other endorsements, a heavy emphasis on security, and quality ratings.

7 - Target User Behavior

Sometimes your content may not resonate with visitors, and they will bounce without taking any action. This is most common in blog posts and resource pages.

It's normal for a user to land on your article, find what they wanted, and leave. To improve your bounce rate, show the most relevant offer right when they land on your blog or article.

For example, if a user lands on a blog post about interior design tips, then your offer should be around interior decorating instead of the latest headlines.

This way, the user will be more inclined to stay on your page and take action with a relevant offer.

8 - Do some A/B testing

Have two versions of the same page with a different offer, headline, or call to action. After a certain period of time, compare their bounce rates and see which one is more effective.

This will help you identify who your audience is so that you can give them what they want, increasing conversions.

9 - Improve your content marketing

It's important to have content on your site that is engaging for visitors. Articles, rich materials, and valuable data will always keep people interacting with your business for a longer period of time.

Defining your positioning and image through Content Marketing will help you to present a consistent experience, and generate the right impression of your brand.