Tags – How to Improve Bounce Rate
If you’ve recently sat down to review your website’s performance, you may have noticed that there’s been no improvement in website traffic, new sign-ups or leads.
One big thing that could be affecting this is having a high bounce rate.
To put simply, those who visit your website quickly click off before you have a chance to even convert them.
Whilst you may have heard in the SEO world how to increase metric measures – bounce rate is one that you’ll want to keep low.
Let’s look closely at what a bounce rate is and how you can make quick changes to your website to improve in this area.
What is a Bounce Rate?
As defined by Google, the bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits; it measures quality and indicates if the pages are relevant to your users.
When a user visits your site and has no interactions whatsoever; no engagement on the landing page, doesn’t click on any links or leaves without visiting other pages – this is going to give you a high bounce rate.
Of course, if your website serves only to inform, then a high bounce rate may not necessarily be a bad thing.
However, let’s say your goal is to get new users to sign up to your newsletter, then you’ll most definitely want them to actively engage with your website.
To put it differently, a high bounce rate indicates that there is something wrong with your website and those who are visiting are not having a good user experience, hence why they quickly clicked off.
Now you understand what a bounce rate is, let’s look at 5 ways you can change your website to improve this metric.
5 Website Changes to Improve Bounce Rate
1. UX Design
The way you experience your website will be very different to a new outside user who visits for the first time.
UX design (User Experience) has many dimensions, including interaction, visual design, usability and more.
Specifically, UX Design is the process of creating a product that is not only useful but easy to use and a breath of fresh air to interact with.
And so by enhancing the experience that people have when using your website and helping them find value in what you’re offering, you can be sure people will stay on your website for longer and as such, lower your bounce rate.
2. Be Concise
Don’t beat around the bush and get straight to the point.
The first page your visitors see when they click on your website should be specific and concise and not include anything that seems vague.
The same applies to content too: concise content is easier to catch the eye, take in and engage with.
At the same time, don’t say the same thing over and over just in different ways – just use straightforward sentences and get rid of all the extra fluff.
3. Update Content
You’ve probably heard this a lot, but I’ll say it once more – content is king. (Or queen!)
As obvious as it may seem, but those businesses who update their content regularly will generate more leads than those who don’t.
But, this content needs to be valuable and offer solutions to problems your audience didn’t even know they had.
And the more content you can provide, the longer new visitors will spend on your website, perhaps even read previous blogs and once you’ve built trust – come back for more.
On a related subject, please check below how you can convert more leads into paying clients:
4. Compelling Call to Action
Every single page your website has should have a clear and compelling call to action.
Whether it be your home page, product page or a blog post, you need to tell your users what you want them to do next.
Is it to sign up to your newsletter? To contact you for more information? Whatever it is you want out of your visitors – tell them!
5. Loading Time
Nobody likes waiting.
Especially when we live in an instant, digital world: everyone wants information immediately at their fingertips.
Unfortunately, the longer your site takes to load the quicker people are going to leave your page for someone else’s.
Just think about how many times you’ve done it? And I’m more than sure when you went back on to the search results you saw plenty of other competitors offering similar information.
And your audience is no different.
With that in mind, your website should have fully optimised images and code and get rid of unnecessary plug-ins that are slowing down your loading time.
Concluding Thoughts
If you’ve made it this far, you should now have a clearer understanding of what a bounce rate is and how you can change your website to improve it.
Always remember to stay consistent and the above tips will help you to produce positive results in growing your online audience.
The key takeaway?
Keep your users satisfied and they’ll keep coming back for more!
For more information, please contact us today.
In the meantime, check our Web Design services.
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