“Reduce Bounce Rate? What is it?” – When visitors land on your website and leave without taking an action or visiting any other page, it’s called a bounce.
And the bounce rate represents its percentage of sessions.
Don’t know how to calculate bounce rate?
Here’s the bounce rate formula for Math geeks :
Bounce rate = Number of single-page sessions / Total number of sessions X 100
I know this question might come into your mind – Is bounce rate important?
Yes, it’s important. More than you think.
What if I tell you your current bounce rate can have a huge impact on your sales?
Now, before ‘bouncing’ off our website to check your current bounce rate, please read this post to fully understand what I mean by it.
Bounce Rate Higher or Lower Better?
Before understanding how bounce rate can impact your sales. You need to understand what classifies as a good or bad bounce rate.
Researchers have classified anything between 50-70% could be classified as a good bounce rate.
“So, is a low bounce rate good?”.
Yes as per the data, it is.
You might be wondering : “But why is my bounce rate so high?”
Let me make it clear for you.
The bounce rate that you can have also depends on your website.
A landing page (with a single CTA) generally has a high bounce rate. Same as informational posts or articles.
Basically, the website that usually gives visitors what they want without needing them to get redirected to another webpage generally has a high bounce rate.
This also answers a common question : Is a high bounce rate bad?
So, a high bounce rate doesn’t always mean bad. Some things are just designed to be this way.
A general rule that can be used for bounce rates : The lower, the better.
What does a High Bounce Rate Indicate?
A high bounce rate GENERALLY means you are doing something wrong.
Most people who know about bounce rates have these questions :
“Do bounce rates affect SEO?”
“Is bounce rate a ranking factor?”
“Does bounce rate affect website engagement?”
Let me answer them for you.
When visitors bounce off your website, this can signal Google’s algorithm that visitors dislike your website. If so, Google can move your website to rank lower than other websites.
So yeah, bounce rate DOES affect your ranking and SEO.
And if you don’t rank high, there can be a conversion drop. Which means losing sales.
Although indirect but still bounce rate HAS an impact on your sales.
“Alright I know now, but how to reduce bounce rate?”
Don’t worry, by changing just a few things on your website, you can fix it.
Below are what we think are, reasons for the high bounce rate on the website. Fix them immediately to not lose any sales or conversions.
Tips on How to Reduce Bounce Rate on Website
Slow Loading Speed / Slow Page Speed
“There’s connection between website loading speed and bounce rate?”
Yes. A big one actually.
If your page load time is over 2.5 seconds, visitors bounce off.
People don’t like to wait anymore. Please don’t make them.
This is also a common confusion : bounce rate vs exit rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave a website after viewing only one page (single-page sessions).
While exit rate is the percentage of visitors who leave a website from a specific page, regardless of how many pages they viewed before exiting.
Essentially, all bounces are exits, but not all exits are bounces.
Make sure your website loads lightning fast to avoid a high bounce rate.
Poor / Misleading Content
Does your website load fast? Great.
But what about its content?
When people search for something and open a website, they want to see the answer that they searched for.
Poorly or vaguely written content fails to engage visitors and leads to bounces.
Same with misleading titles or content.
For example – When someone searches for “Buy dog food online” and your website ranks on the search result, but when the person opens it and finds articles about dog food, they bounce off due to frustration.
Make sure to take time in editing the content and accurately use title tags and meta descriptions to avoid misleading and frustrating visitors.
Poor User Experience (UX)
User experience and bounce rate go hand-in-hand too.
Did you know a company was able to change its 50% bounce rate to 5% just by changing its website’s design?
Yes, the UX matters THAT much. Forget converting visitors with those old-looking websites in this day and age.
Make sure your website is easy to use and navigate. If they need to figure out things on your website, like a game, they are out.
Don’t forget Mobile Optimization. According to newframedigital, this year, mobile devices account for 63.3% of the total web traffic.
If you read the article, it also says that mobile bounce rates are between 58-60% whereas desktops are 48-50%.
This means that although your website will get a large amount of traffic from mobile devices, they can easily bounce off if you haven’t optimized your website well for mobile devices.
So, a poor mobile experience is also a no-no.
Make sure to give importance to user experience (UX) while maintaining your website to reduce bounce rate.
Technical Errors
We’ve all been to websites that take forever to load.
Also, to those websites that are always under maintenance or show ‘404 not found’.
Not to forget those that don’t allow us to do things for which they were made. Like signing up or completing a payment to buy something.
These kinds of errors frustrate the user, and they’re left with no choice but to bounce off.
Make sure to fix any broken links or errors on your website as soon as possible.
Intrusive Pop-Ups & ADs
This one personally annoys me the most.
Few websites on the internet bombard us with so many ADs that I feel they solely earn money from them.
As soon as you click on the website, BOOM.
As if they were waiting just for you.
Same with the Pop-ups.
When I click on the “X” mark, why are you popping up on my screen every 5 minutes?
Please don’t be like this.
Even if you want to add a pop-up to your website, don’t show it to the visitor as soon as they land on it; instead, show it after a few minutes. This way, they get the impression that you care about their experience, unlike other websites.
And make sure not to bomb your users with those annoying ADs and pop-ups.
Conclusion
That was the post.
These were the most common reasons for a high bounce rate on a website, according to us.
Also answering common questions like – How to decrease bounce rate, What is bounce rate in google analytics, and so on.
Please make sure to fix them if you haven’t, and see the difference.
Need help doing that?
Hire Us! – Growigh
We help businesses convert their dead websites into a constant revenue-generating machine, avoiding all of the above (and more) website design errors.
Book a free call here and let us help you.
