The Website works as an ambassador for the organization; creative and attractive website represents the working culture of the organization and attracts the audience. If you want to know that, how well your audience is engaging with your website then review your bounce rate. Actually bounce rate is the metric that indicates the percentage of people who lands on one of the web pages and then leaves the site immediately without clicking to anywhere else. If visitors leave your site immediately, it suggests that they did not find the precise information what they were looking for.
What is the Impact of Bounce Rate on the Website?
Actually, Bounce Rate is inversely proportional to the search traffic. The higher the bounce rate, lower will be the search traffic. Google prefers the website according to the time spent by the visitor on a website. If visitor hit back button immediately right after landing on the web page, then Google disinterest for that particular website, the resultant website loses ranking and value on search engine.
What are the Reasons of High Bounce Rate?
Literally, there are two major reasons behind the high bounce rate. First one is, the visitor did not find what he or she was looking for. Second one is, the webpage was too difficult to use. Apart from these two reasons, we are highlighting common website mistakes that results in a higher bounce rate.
Annoying and distracting Animation- These two are one of the main reasons of higher bounce rate. Maximum visitors leave the site immediately due to disruptive audio, video and pop ups. So, it will be better if you provide your visitors a clean and simple website with simple layout and punchy content.
A Confusing and Unclear Messages– Due to unclear and confusing message, maximum visitors leave the site that result a higher bounce rate. Whatever your message, it should be very clear and informative. This will make your site popular and user-friendly.
Difficult to Navigate- With the passage of time people are browsing the internet on smart phones and tablets very soon the number of mobile users will surpass the desktop and laptop. Quality website has some excellent features like aesthetic design and easy navigation. Recently it is found that maximum visitors leave the site in the middle due to poor navigation this is one of the main reasons for higher bounce rate. The website should easy to navigate and use. Navigation plays a huge role in improving the bounce rate of website. Too many drop downs and not being able to easily return back to previous pages are big turn- offs to visitors.
Slow third party plug-ins and Widgets- You will find numerous excellent plugins, which will enhance website experience of visitors. But too many plugins in the website reduces the loading time of the website and slow loading time annoys the visitors, causing your visitors to exit.
Advertisements that slaps you in the face- It’s our humble request, respect your audience, we understand the importance of advertisement, but don’t slap them on the face of audience. Literally, very few people click on the ads, so it will be better keep the number of ads minimum and display them below the folds.
Killer Ways to Improve the Bounce Rate
Improving the Bounce rate, is not a rocket science so don’t make it a mountain out of a molehill. Here we are providing some killer idea to improve it.
Improve the readability of the website- Due to poor readability visitors leave your site, make your content readable and legible. Make your blog easy to read, here are following tips to make the content more readable.
- Use subheading, this will make your topic punchy.
- Use bullet points to explain the benefits.
- According to the requirement use images, charts and screen shot.
- Bold some particular keyword, but don’t overdo it.
- Make your content creative and out of box for example – Ask a lot of questions in the content, this will compel your reader to think.
- Never forget to end your content with the conclusion. Actionable conclusion tells reader to quickly read the last few lines and take action. .
Avoid Annoying Ads and Popups- Popups and Annoying ads makes the website poor and irritates visitors as well. More than 70% of users said that they found irrelevant Popups. According to the research and statistics only 14% of consumer responds to a pop up ad, compared to 51% responds positively to email offers.
Improve your content- In the digital era, we cannot deny the importance of content. You can say that content is the backbone of digital marketing. Fresh, punchy and high quality content will always yield the best ROI. According to the recent research and statistics, it is found that updating the blog with fresh content on regular basis generate two times more leads, more than those who don’t.
Improve your page loading speed- Loading time of the website one of the major reason behind the bounce rate of website. It is found that, more than 60% users abandon the page due to poor loading speed. Ideally, loading time of the website should be less than three seconds.
Fix broken links- If you want to improve performance of the website and reduce the bounce rate then fixing broken links are mandatory. Google search console is a great tool to analyze the broken links, additionally web master tool like Screaming Frog identify all of the broken links on your site and fix as many of them as possible.
Internal Linking- Internal linking is a plain and simple SEO practices to increase your ranking and very effective to reduce the bounce rate. Add more internal links to keep people navigating around your website.
Improve Navigation- If you have poor navigation on your website then visitors will leave the site immediately without clicking anywhere else. It will be better, if you make your navigation intuitive. Simple and easy navigation make the visitor to find what they are looking for. Heatmap tool is the great way to test your navigation.
Browser Cross Compatibility- Make sure that your website’s cross browser compatible. According to the research, it is found that the bounce rate in Internet Explorer is almost 15% higher than Google Chrome. Test your browser time and again to ensure you are reducing your bounce rate in all browsers.
Also Read: Smart and effective on page SEO techniques to double the search traffic
Conclusion- Build your website for people not for search engine, this is the easiest way to reduce the bounce rate. There are a lot of ways like ensuring everything work on mobile, crafting useful relevant content and easily navigable are the such things which you should focus on. But for best result, contact with a trustworthy SEO services provider.