10 Guaranteed Ways To Reduce Bounce Rate
Imagine walking into a store and making a u-turn to leave because you don’t see anything you like. That’s the equivalent of “bouncing” on a website, making up the bounce rate.
What Is Bounce Rate?
A visitor to your website is said to “bounce” when he/she leaves without further interacting with the website, such as navigating to another page.
To put it mathematically, the bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who visit your website and leave without taking action. They are a group of “one-page’’ visitors.
What Does This Mean?
A high bounce rate would mean a large number of visitors leaving your website without taking the desired action. If the success of your website requires users to visit multiple pages, then a high bounce rate is something that you would want to avoid. For many businesses, especially ecommerce, this relates to poorer conversion rates and loss of potential customers and sales. As such, reducing bounce rates on your website should be made a key focus.
Imagine spending thousands of dollars on advertising in an attempt to bring more traffic to your website. Yes, you may have managed to achieve higher traffic. However, if it is accompanied by high bounce rates on your website, then you are essentially wasting your marketing dollars and resources. And that is why reducing your high bounce rate is a big deal and should be made a priority.
What Is The Benchmark?
So, what makes a good and bad bounce rate?
Well, there is no strict answer because it depends on the nature of the website. If the website consists of only a single webpage, the bounce rate will naturally be high since the next natural thing for visitors to do after going through your website is to leave.
However, based on the averages across different types of platforms and industries, you will be able to have a rough idea of where you stand.
Here are the bounce rate averages across different types of websites:
If your bounce rate is performing below the industry average, you should start making changes to your website to improve it. We have provided 10 tips on what you should do, so start taking action today!
10 Tips to Reduce Bounce Rates
1. Improve Page Loading Speed
Imagine how frustrated you get when trapped in a traffic jam.
Well, that’s exactly how you will feel when you encounter a slow loading page.
Not a very pleasant feeling or experience right?
A slow page loading speed drives users away easily as they are most likely to become impatient.
This means:
- Number of pages viewed by visitors decreases
- Bounce rate increases
With such a poor user experience, it is no surprise that your visitors have a tendency to leave your website without exploring further.
For starters, you can easily check your page loading speed using tools such as Pingdom and GTmetrix for free. There are many ways to improve your page loading speed, such as minimizing your code (JavaScript, HTML, etc.) and improving server response time.
As such, it is important to optimize your page loading speed to provide a better experience and thereby retain your visitors to reduce the bounce rate.
2. Personalize, Personalize, & Personalize
Over 63% of shoppers state that personalization on the landing page impacts purchasing decisions.
Customers nowadays like to be showered with attention and treated like a king. For instance, your website can look at addressing them by their names to impress them. This is a form of personalization. Of course, there are other ways that you can provide a personalized experience for your users such as greeting them based on their geographic location. With data, this is something that can be easily achieved.
By reaching out to your visitors in a personalized manner, they are more inclined to stay on and explore the other features of your website. It keeps them engaged and provides better user experience, making them feel special and unique. With the reduced bounce rates, it also helps in driving up conversions on your website.
3. Utilize Exit-Intent Popup
An exit-intent popup is a very effective way to reduce your bounce rate and increase your conversions. It is triggered when a user attempts to leave your website and a popup message will be displayed to encourage and convince your users to stay, such as the one shown below.
75% of users come back to the website after seeing an offer inside an exit intent popup.
Source: OSI Affiliate
By incentivizing your popup message with an offer or targeting your users according to their browsing history, you can create a targeted message to appeal to your users. This will not only convince them to stay but encourage them to make a purchase, therefore reducing your bounce rate while increasing your conversion rate.
4. Create A Compelling CTA
We all know that a Call-To-Action (CTA) button plays an important role in converting customers, bringing users one step deeper down the funnel. There are many considerations when creating a good CTA, such as location, color, size, and many more.
Personalizing your CTA is a great way to reduce your bounce rate. For instance, for a first-time visitor, a “Learn More Here” CTA will be a lot more appropriate than a “Buy Now” CTA. The type of CTA displayed accurately reflects their current state of interest and knowledge of your website, leading each individual user one step deeper into the funnel.
Personalized Call-To-Action Perform 202% Better Than Basic CTAs
Source: Hubspot
A compelling CTA is a powerful and important element on your website. They have the ability to turn your visitors into potential clients and should not be overlooked. As such, if you want to reduce your bounce rate, you have to create a compelling CTA that will entice them to click it, be it buying a product or just to learn more about your company.
5. Ensure External Links Open In New Windows
Just like this blog post, it is not uncommon for websites to contain external links. External links are web links that bring users to another website that may or may not be related to your business.
By programming these external links to open in a new window, it ensures that visitors will not leave your website. Should the external link replace the current URL, visitors may be distracted by the new website and not return to your website.
Moreover, doing so means that visitors do not have to constantly click the “back” button to return to the original page, making it more convenient for them.
88% of users are less likely to return to a site because of bad user experience.
Source: bluespace
If you do not want your visitors to leave, you should provide a better user experience and give them a reason to stay.
6. Use Social Proof To Increase Credibility
Social proof is a very powerful tool. When in a situation of uncertainty and self-doubt, people tend to look to others as a gauge for their own behavior.
Using a live counter (like the one shown below) to show the number of active visitors on your website in real-time is an effective way to prove the credibility of your website to your visitors, assuring them that there are other like-minded people on your website. This removes any fear or suspicion, giving them the confidence to continue exploring your website, hence helping to bring your bounce rate down.
For example, if you run an ecommerce business, reviews and testimonials from previous buyers serve as a strong source of credibility for new customers who wish to purchase a product. This not only eradicates any doubt or suspicion but also gives users the confidence to purchase.
Users rely heavily on these social proof to make a decision.
Adding testimonials led to a 34% increase in purchases.
Source: WikiJob
93% of consumers say online reviews have an impact on their purchase decision.
Source: Podium
This goes to show the importance of social proof and its ability to influence your user’s perception of your website. So if social proof has such a power and ability, why not leverage it to improve the credibility of your website and reduce your bounce rate?
7. Make It Mobile-Friendly
70% of internet access is via mobile devices. It is not uncommon for people to own if not one, but multiple mobile devices these days. Since the majority of users are accessing the internet via mobile devices, a mobile-friendly interface is a must.
40% of mobile users will choose another search result if the one they land on isn’t mobile-friendly.
Source: Marketpath
Users should be able to easily make the desired action on their mobile devices without having to make any additional effort. The functionality and usability of the website should be the same on mobile devices as on desktop computers. This not only retains your users due to better user experience, it also helps to reduce bounce rates as the positive experience makes it more compelling for them to surf multiple pages of your website.
8. Quality Over Quantity
Focus on the quality of your web traffic rather than the quantity. Sure, numbers may represent results and high web traffic may seem like a good thing. After all, it means that more people know about your website.
However, that does not mean that your visitors will stick around long enough to carry out the desired action you want them to do. In other words, they may not be the value customers you are looking for.
A great way to drive quality traffic to your website would be to focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This means optimizing your website to include highly relevant keywords in the page title, meta description and heading, as well as attract organic traffic via a proper content strategy. This will help to filter out low quality traffic because organic visitors have high intent and have a specific topic in mind when they enter your website.
By focusing on targeting and capturing visitors who fit the description of your target audience, it will ensure that the “correct” visitors stay on your website long enough for them to take action, effectively reducing your bounce rate and increasing your chances of converting them into long-term value customers.
9. Ensure A Pleasant User Interface And Experience
Imagine entering a website that is cluttered with information and difficult to use.
How likely are you to leave the website immediately?
Most likely right?
38% of users will stop engaging with a website if the content is unattractive in its layout or imagery.
Source: Adobe
For starters, do not clutter your webpage with too much information. Keeping it clean and minimalistic prevents you from overwhelming your visitors with details. Good interfaces avoid unnecessary features and elements that may distract users.
Likewise, ensure that the webpage flows smoothly. This means a logical flow of information, guiding your visitors down the webpage where they can ultimately take action. By making it easy for visitors to explore your website, they are less likely to be distracted by other factors that can prompt their leave.
Your visitor should feel comfortable and be able to easily navigate throughout the website. This will give your visitors a better user experience and give you the opportunity to retain them and capture their attention with the content that you have to share, thereby reducing your bounce rate.
10. Optimize Your Website With A/B Testing
Even if you have a healthy bounce rate, there is always room for improvement.
Conducting A/B testing to compare multiple versions of your website is a great way to draw valuable comparisons and insights, allowing you to identify features and versions that work better. These changes can be as small as changing the font size of your text or the color of your CTA. However, these small changes can make a huge difference in retaining your visitors and thereby reduce your bounce rate.
Always be prepared to test, test, and test.
With That Being Said…
At the end of the day, your visitors will have to leave your website. However, you do not want your visitors to leave without taking the desired action. These visitors are the key to your business success and you should do your best to retain them on your website.
You may be spending thousands of dollars on advertising, trying to drive more traffic to your website. But with a high bounce rate, it all comes to naught. As such, reducing bounce rate should be a priority. Of course, if you follow the tips above, you are on to a great start.
With Ping Proof, we can easily help you make some of the changes mentioned above to achieve a lower bounce rate. Check out our suite of social proof notification widgets that can help you drive your conversion rates too. We will let the numbers do the talking, so request for a 14-day free trial with us today!
