6 Ways to Reduce Bounce Rate of Your Website
Have you been facing problems in getting more visitors to convert into customers? Perhaps you’re getting enough traffic, but nothing seems to happen after that; this is a case of your bounce rate being too high.
What exactly is ‘Bounce Rate’?
This refers to the number of visitors who leave your website from your landing page without engaging with your site anymore; it is expressed as a percentage of visitors to your site.
If your bounce rate is high, it means that there are some issues with your site due to which your visitors are leaving. Knowing the bounce rate is critical – because this indicates how people interact with your site, whether they like your content, and also if your website is SEO friendly.
When your bounce rate reduces, the chances of visitors converting to buyers increase – which is your ultimate aim.
So what’s a good bounce rate?
80% is considered very poor; 70%+ is poor, 50-70% average, and 30-50% is good – excellent even. Below 30% is most likely due to tracking errors. Regardless of what you do, there is likely to be a bounce rate of about 30-50%, due to various reasons beyond your control.
Now let’s examine what you can do to reduce the bounce rate:
1. Provide a Better User Experience
User Experience or UX can be defined as the collective experience a user has in their interaction with the company/brand, its products, and services – and this includes the brand’s online presence. It’ the overall experience a user has when they interact with your website; the user must find your site aesthetically pleasing, and easy to use.
Ergo, the first step you need to ask your web development company to take is to create a user friendly website that functions smoothly and looks visually appealing across all devices and platforms.
2. Optimize Your CTAs
The first few seconds that your visitors spend on your site are the most critical, for they decide whether or not they like your site and want to spend time on it in those moments. Sometimes, all it takes is a glance at the part of the page that’s visible to them without scrolling that’s enough to put them off, or to pique their interest. A Call to Action is a button that encourages the visitor to take some action, like download an e-book, sign up for newsletters, or purchase a product. Insist to your web developer that the landing page must be optimized, and have a clear, visible, and honest CTA. Misleading CTAs will have a negative impact and create a bad UX.
3. Improve Your Site’s Speed
The importance of site loading speed simply cannot be stressed enough. Like we said before, the first few seconds are crucial; don’t make your visitors wait while you show them a blank page with a circle going around itself infinitely. Ask your website development company to test your page and check the loading speed – because even a one second delay in page loading can cost you up to 10% sales.
A good web design and development company will ensure that your images are optimized, the caching is improved, and get a hosting provider that is speedy.
4. Optimize for the Right Keywords
When users search in Google, the search engine bots throw up results that are most likely to suit the user’s requirement, as they match the words used. Those words are called keywords. It is important that you optimize your site for the keywords that are relevant to your products and services. Your website development agency will use tools to find out the terms used by users to search for products and services similar to yours.
Tip: Always remember that the title tag and meta description should also be keyword rich and describe the content of the page perfectly – this will reduce the bounce rate.
5. Use High Quality Images to Captivate User Attention
Let’s face it, nobody wants to read huge blocks of text; or even if they are ready to read, when images are seen, it helps them get a clearer idea. When you are selling products, it is especially important to use good quality images, to catch the visitors’ interest. Use professionally shot photographs – and never use free stock images, it reduces your credibility. The images can be used as backgrounds – full screen, parallax, inline images, and so on. A high quality image next to a CTA is doubly effective.
6. Let Your Customers Speak for You
Testimonials: All the more important in this era of online purchasing; the more testimonials you have, the higher your credibility, and the higher the chances of a visitor buying from you. While quotes from your customers along with their photographs are good, video testimonials will be even more effective. Visitors are more likely to believe what previous users of your products and services have to say about you rather than what you say about yourself.
You will see it on many websites a tiny little testimonials slider, showing a quote from one customer at a time. While it does the job, you can make it a lot more effective.
You can either show sliding testimonials on the landing page, or have a separate page for them, or even a combo of both – discuss with your website development professional what will work best for you.
Do get in touch with us enquiry@ipixtechnologies.com and we will tell you how we can help you.