How To Reduce Bounce Rate And Increase Conversions

Every day, marketers battle for online visibility, yet only a small number of them get the attention they want.

And if you are not amongst them… it’s high time that you start taking action.

But before taking any action, you should start asking the question, “why are you receiving so little traffic?”

This might simply be due to your website’s high bounce rate, which has forced Google to rank your search result lower.

And believe me when I say that your users are not even going to get a chance to look at your page for a second.

But, don’t panic! I am here to help you!

In this article, I’ll discuss the areas where your website is lacking behind and how to improve it.

So, let’s get started!

But before moving further, let’s first understand what the bounce rate is.

What Is A Bounce Rate?

The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that leave a web page without taking any action, such as, filling out a form, or making a purchase.

The bounce rate formula is supplied by the ratio of single page sessions to total sessions to compute your website’s bouncing rates.

You may also easily grasp this using the formula I’ve provided below:

The bounce rate formula clearly illustrates what I’m trying to say.

Now, the question that might be buzzing in your mind is, “What is a good bounce rate?” 

Don’t worry! 

I have answers to each and every query of yours. 

Let me show you some interesting data by GoRocketFuel.com which is going to clear your doubt regarding a good bounce rate.

They say, “A good Bounce Rate ranges between 26 and 40 percent”

Now, let’s read what diibs has to say,

“As a rule of thumb, a bounce rate in the range of 25 to 40 percent is excellent. However, 41 to 55 percent is fairly average. 56 to 70 percent is higher than average, but may not cause too much concern depending on the website.”

So, diibs confirms the rate to be excellent when under 40%, and this clears the question of “what is a good bounce rate?”

But if your website’s bounce rate exceeds 56%, it is high time for you to take action for your website.

Before taking any further actions… you need to understand “what is a high bounce rate?” and how you can improve it. 

What Is A High Bounce Rate?

Well, for your kind information, a high bounce rate for your website is defined as one that surpasses 70%.

It is such a high percentage that you should be concerned.

Why? Because your website’s high bounce rate indicates that visitors are only spending a fraction of a second on it.

Putting it simply, let’s walk through this example…

Assume your website is a shopping mall.

You have an excessive number of customers approaching your business, but they never step forward to see what items and services you provide.

As a result, no conversions take place.

You’re probably aware that these brief stares, lasting a total of 0 seconds, are becoming increasingly common, which is alarming. Right?

Believe me, the same thing happens with your website which is commonly called bounce rate.

Do you know what happened here?

Here, the high bounce rate has basically created a lack of visitors, which has caused your website to be ranked lower.

So, even if your website has a decent design, the conversion rate isn’t high enough for your website to rank or be visible to potential leads.

But, I am here to assist you, so don’t worry. 

With this blog, I’ll go over each and every tactic for your website for reducing bounce rates.

And going to basically cover the topic of “how to reduce bounce rate ”

So, let’s take a closer look.

10 Ways To Reduce Bounce Rate & Increase Conversions

Accessible & Responsive Website

Believe me, your website is the face of your brand. It represents your brand to the world. 

Everyone nowadays is connected to the internet, they would look for your brand’s website the first time they see your ad, and even if they have just heard about your product from a friend, they would search for your website on their preferred device. 

As a result, everyone should be able to view your website.

You build your website to make it easily accessible for the users. Right?

But you felt stuck when your website didn’t receive the traffic that you expected.

And you question  “Why is my bounce rate so high?”

Your bounce rate becomes so high because your customer started using the internet on mobile phones and you didn’t make the website accessible to them. 

With 5.7 billion of the world population using mobile phones and at least 47% of internet traffic (in the USA) coming from mobile users, you apparently realized that website accessibility isn’t the only factor to consider.

So, don’t you think you should also consider this large population?

The above statistic clears the “importance” of mobile-friendly websites for your business which is for users’ satisfaction.

Let me make it more clear to you with the help of an example:

Let’s say a user is exploring your website on a desktop.

Now, due to urgent circumstances, he has to leave home and obviously he can’t take the device with him.

But thanks to the innovation in the phone industry, he has a smartphone which he can use as an alternative device to explore your website.

He starts exploring but your website is not mobile-friendly. He is not able to read and go through the content properly.

What do you think he would do? Would he wait for you to start a responsive website? 

No, he won’t bother with your website. He would just search for another mobile-friendly website and start exploring again.

Because this inconvenience brings displeasure to your user.

Now I want you to understand the problems that users encounter when your website isn’t mobile-friendly.

The first thing that your user encounters is the display of your website.

The display looked fantastic on his desktop but as it was not optimized for mobile, it doesn’t give the same response on his mobile.

This happened because your website’s template design becomes a mess, the words of the content are very small, the pictures are overlapping the text and even plugins used within the website aren’t working as they should.

Let’s have a clear understanding by studying this picture.

When you look at the standard website(template not made for mobile), you can see that its text is so small that they are unreadable, the pictures are small to make them unappealing, and the buttons shown are unreadable.

Whereas, the mobile-friendly website shows a clear intent of business because it has an accurate amount of visuals on the website which shows pictures, navigation tools, text, everything in the right proportion.

Now, do you understand what a user faces if your website is not mobile-friendly?

For more assurance, read another fact: Google uses your website’s mobile-friendly feature as a parameter to rank your website in search results.

An increased rank means that your website would receive more visibility among search results which would increase your user and decrease bouncing off your website.

As a function of your website, this is the first feature to execute the topic of “How To Reduce Bounce Rate ”

Bonus point: You can check your website’s mobile-friendliness on a tool provided by Google: Mobile-Friendly Test.

Read more: 16 Points New Website Launch Checklist (Never Miss a Step‎)

Site Loading And Navigation

Your users are impatient. And of course why not? After all,  Who has time to wait for your website to load?

So, the most basic thing they need from your website is to load fast, i.e., between 1 to 3 seconds as pointed out by website setup

The later your website loads, the greater number of leads are leaving your website and the higher would be the bounce rate.

As stated by Think With Google,

“If a website load time increases from 3 seconds upto 10 second, the bounce rate increases by 123%” 

With this information feeded, you now know How To Reduce Bounce Rate of your website.

But, I’d like to direct your attention to another element that is a constant headache for your customers: Navigation.

Let’s understand the problem of navigation through this example:

Suppose your customer is reading an article or features of a product on your website.

However, if they are accidentally directed to another page, they would  want to return to that page and finish what they were reading.

And what if your website doesn’t have a search bar or any other navigable tool?

It would  become quite impossible for the reader to navigate within your website, and he would only have an option to go back to the previous page.

The reader would  get annoyed and would want to leave your website to explore others. 

Then, You would  be asking “why the hell did this happen?”

And believe me, this happened because your website didn’t provide them with an alternative during these annoying spurts.

And consequently, your bounce rate would  become high if this problem is not tackled.

Note that it is essential for your site to have a navigation button or a prominent search bar available. This way your leads could easily find what they’re looking for, instead of just going blind and getting confused.

For example, you can see the image below.

You can check out my website where, as you can see in the picture, I have provided navigational tools such as Search bar, Home, About Us, etc. 

These tools allow your users to freely navigate your website and choose from a variety of alternatives. 

Bonus point: Location of your website’s tools  must be easily accessible to your users. 

Broken Link And 404 Pages

Trust me your website’s broken links are just similar to a failed connection between you and your user.

When a person opens your website and does not get the expected page, they would get  irritated.

And you know what will  happen next…

Your users would return back to the search results and find another page that conveniently provides them the information they want.  

So, let’s understand further what a broken link is and how it affects the bounce rate. 

The website’s broken link is the page that cannot be accessed or found by the users, though the URL is present in the website system.

Now, this could happen because you renamed a link, or a file link in your blog has been erased, or you typed the wrong url.

For better knowledge, let’s see what happens when a user opens a broken link. 

When this happens, the web server shows an error warning such as Error 404 by default.

And how do you think it would  impact your website?

So, first, you were unable to persuade the user to investigate your website, resulting in the loss of clients.

And secondly, because Google ranks websites based on user comfort and inconvenience, this would  drop your ranking in the search results.

And, the lower your website’s rank is, the lower would  be its visibility and very few conversions happen.

So, in order to avoid being caught in such a dilemma, you can 

A) Use websites that look for and report broken links on a website. Such as Google Console, W3C Link Checker, SEMrush, etc.

These would  provide you with proper data on which broken link needs work.

B) Avoid deep links within the site (unless necessary).

C) A broken external website link must be requested from the other website for repair or removed if not repaired.

D)  Create the content again or replace it with a new one.

E) Use the redirect mechanism, i.e. to avoid dissatisfied customers, redirect the broken URL to a related topic. (This can be easily done by creating a redirect 301 file).

F) The 404 Error is a last-ditch attempt to notify customers.

If you have accurately examined all of the above solutions, you know How To Reduce Bounce Rate of your website. This is done by enhancing your user’s experience which would  present your website in google ranking and your visibility would  be increased.

Big ‘No’ To Pop-Ups And Ads

As a business you should know, pop-ups are notoriously responsible for the higher bounce rates on many upstanding websites.

This is because “Users hate pop-ups.”

If you still don’t believe it, let me confirm this with the data from the HubSpot survey that points out that,

“73% of users dislike the online pop-ups and 51% of users consider them to be “frustrating to deal with.”

Let me explain this concept with an example,

Suppose a guy suddenly jumps in front of you, when you are leisurely walking on a street or road. He did this to advertise a sale, or promote a new shop.

Would  you be annoyed? Yes, you would .

Anybody would get annoyed. 

So, why won’t your users be annoyed when your website has an “immediate” pop-up snapping on their display. 

Now you understand why I am not in favor of Ads or pop-ups and so, it is not a surprise this causes a high bounce rate on your website.

These little guys(pop-ups) may be cheap and even loved by web designers but your users hate them because pop-ups interrupt their workflow.

So, for working on the problem of how to reduce bounce rate, you need to understand that when you have these advertisements all over your page – in the corner, at the top, and the one that suddenly popped up on the page, this does not create any leads. 

Then, you may ask questions like, “how would I capture Email from our users?

Well, if your users are running away before even exploring then, how would  you make them give their Email address to you? 

But, I understand that capturing emails is important too, so you can use the Pop ups but keep these things in your mind,

A) They should be smaller in size so as not to disturb the display of your website for your users; 

B) You should not use too many pop-ups and especially the ones that open up again and again.

C) Choose one that blends with the background and isn’t too bright or unpleasant to the eyes.; and 

D) You should use a time delay pop-up that comes after the user has read an important section or even at the end of the website.

This way your users are less annoyed when they close the pop-up.

But mostly if you can avoid it, do avoid them as even Google termed them as “intrusive interstitials” in their blog ‘Helping users easily access content on mobile’.

The problem is these Ads and pop-ups are activated solely on your user’s actions and therefore, disrupts them in the middle of their engagements with your website. Users getting annoyed frequently would  start losing interest in your website.

As, your users have just one goal in mind: to solve their problem and to use ‘popup blockers’ such as the one shown in the picture. 

For the users, this little message of “pop up blocked” is less annoying than those untimely jumpers.

So, be considerate of your user’s engagements and you’ll be one step closer to increasing conversions.

Bonus point: You can collect emails by using call-to-action for email sign-ups at the beginning of the page and at the end or use lead magnets (free book content, free webinars, etc).

Optimize Landing Pages

Your landing Pages are the major reason for conversions as they are the first and foremost component seen by your users.

Do you know that Nifty Marketing states that “77% of the top landing pages were home pages”?

So, your landing page must appeal to your users.

But, if it does not appeal, you must think, How to reduce the bounce rate of your landing page?

You can reduce the bouncing rate of your website by capturing your users attention through the design of your landing page, the presentation of its content and the information provided on it.

Do follow this list to create a practical landing page.

A) Simplify your landing page 

B) Loading time of your landing page must be within  a second or two, so do not use heavy files on it.

C) Have a clear intent. Your user must understand what you are selling them. 

D) Add contact information, so the actionable user can directly contact you.

E) Using content such as discounts for a limited time period and offers of webinar, zoom class, etc. This keeps leads interested and these sessions provide them insight into your product and services.

F) Add Call to Action buttons. You should provide a phrase “Download now”, “Join us”, etc which must send the idea clearly.

So, if your homepage is a mess like the picture shown below…

Your users are unable to understand the intention of your webpage like in this picture where it is unclear whether the site is selling credit cards, is a call center or trying to make the user sign in or sell their products. 

Are you ready for an example? Let’s roll! 

If your website is about music and you sell products and services related to it such as sell music instruments, provide music teaching service, sell lyrics and provide related softwares.

You can create different landing pages for different kinds of service and products. 

This makes it easy for your users to navigate through your site with the navigation tools provided on each page.

Now, let’s have some visual analysis. Look at both of the pictures and tell me which landing page would you prefer:

The answer to this is obvious: the one above. Right?

So, I would  give you some pointers on ‘What should be the feature of your landing page?’ and the issues that you have to keep close tabs on:

A) Your landing page must have a proper target and a design that provides a solution to your user. If you are using heavy files, long paragraphs or unintentional content on your landing page your user would  take a u-turn. 

B) The page where a visitor lands should particularly provide a direction. 

The user must feel they have an option to read whatever they want and surf into whichever information they find interesting.

C) If you provide different numbers of services, your website should have individual landing pages for each. 

D) You should not use heavy files (of pictures, videos and animations) because it tends to increase page loading time. (which you already know causes a high bounce)

Providing your users with all these features makes for a clear start and they have an organized place to explore.

Every conversion you get is based on how you keep your intentions clear for the customers. So, that’s another tip on how to reduce bounce rate which is to do a thorough framework research for landing pages before you make one.

Readable & Relatable Content   

Your users can easily understand your intention through words. 

Yes, you heard that right! 

So, what can you do when you are providing them with the right content?

Your content must compel and appeal to your user. Simple and plain language defines your intention towards your users. The concept that you used within the content should be direct with easy examples to understand. The solutions given should be lightly instructive. 

This creates a trust between you and your customer.

I know that you still want to know “What does your user need in terms of the content?”

Don’t worry! I also have an answer for this.

I have discussed some Do’s and Don’ts which would  help you create content which your user would like for sure! 

Do’s

1) Using high-end keywords gives a better chance for your article, or blog to be found. 

2) Use a font pleasing to the eye and easy to read.

3) Use charts, graphs, and images to catch the reader’s attention and explain them.

4) Do give examples. Examples are a great source of illustrating a point. 

5) Proofread the content that you are going to upload on the internet. 

A simple mistake of ‘r’ replaced with ‘c’ within your content, gives a poor experience to your visitors. As people from all over the world have access to your content. Be careful when you post content.

6)  You can also link to other pages of your website. For easy access to your other content.

7) Update your content regularly.

Now that we know what to do, let’s look at what we shouldn’t do.

Don’ts

1) Do not cram or copy your work (No plagiarism).

2) Avoid using bright colors as they are too much irritating to the eyes.

3) Do not give a history lesson on your life. Try to stick to your intent.

4) The text should not have weak language.

5) The font size should not vary too much. Instead, use white space, call out texts, line breakers for better effects.

6) Your content should not be of a bullying nature but conveying.

Now the topic of how to decrease your bounce rate is much clearer for you. 

The above Dos and Don’ts give you an idea of why your content may be causing a high bounce rate. 

Improve Visuals Within Website   

In your business, the use of social media today shows that visuals are taken into consideration more often than last century.

So, your website must contain components such as logos, infographics, videos, and gifs which enhance your user’s experience.

Though we know usability is a key feature of a website, a fantastic visual appeal helps you get a customer to explore your website.

We all like comics. Don’t we?

Your website design and template must provide: response, adaptiveness, and clarity.

1) For your users to like it,  

2) Their need to explore it, and 

3) Your users are urged to understand your brand. 

For you to achieve this your site must have a clear design which means it should contain all  these aspects:

A) Conversational content – With the internet present, remember to provide your users with exact information because your users don’t like long paragraphs of information and points keep them engaged, use bullets and number patterns. 

B) Navigation tools – Tools such as buttons (top, back); links (to reach other information easily within the website), search tools, etc.

C) Pictures – “Every picture tells a story” this old saying works within the web pages too. You can provide pictures, animations and gifs related to your content. They urge certain emotions and keep your users engaged.

D) Infographics – the new information filled design that uses flowcharts to provide information to your users is popular right now, you can use it.

E) Design template –  A textured and colorful design rather than a black ‘n’ white webpage appeals to your user’s senses. Use a brand logo that creates a certain authority within users.

F) Videos – You know how effective movies are in today’s world and with digital effects introduced to it, you can create a world of your own. So why not use it on your business website. Your users love watching videos, so use them within your website for advertisement of your product and services.

Your users interact with you through your website and for this engagement to continue in the long run the visuals of your website must be responsive.

So, your website’s design plays a great role in decreasing your bouncing rate and with that you get the visibility you desire, making your conversions possible.

Target The Right Audience & Engage

Your right audience is the group of customers that wants information about each and every product and services your business provides.

And if you are an educational business, would you go appealing to a visitor who is preparing for a job interview. No, Right? 

Because that is the wrong audience for your business to target.

The job seeker is not a customer for an educational business.

For your educational business, your customers are people interested in learning, students (of schools and colleges), or people who are trying for a promotion. These can become conversions for your website’s products and services.

Now, let’s take a look at this diagram…

This target market diagram shows the total market that you see is very big but your target  audience is very small if you are a start-up or even a specific industry. Right?

Yes, that’s right. A start-up would  go for local traffic first and for a specific industry, the traffic is to be built from those billions of users.

Because we are not aiming for the whole market to become our leads. This is the solution for your website’s ‘how to reduce bounce rate’ dilemma, which encounters the target audience.

As, we only want our target users which make just one-third part of the market of the internet.

Now, let’s discuss how you can find your right audience.

A) Social media platforms: The users who showed their interest in your content, ads, posts, used a certain type of tag or heard of you from a friend are the users that would  lead to conversions, now or later on.

B) Email capture: It is another way to get in touch with an interested user. Here you can have interactions with your users individually.  

This clears your target audience and to know your target audience you best analyze your competitors.

And, from all the data you collect, you can create your business’ own buyer persona which includes age, location, income, and other characteristics of your users.

You should know that at least 44% of businesses are already pursuing buyer persona and 65% of the companies using buyer personas have reported having a clearer view of their target audience and have exceeded lead and revenue goals.

So, as a business, you need to understand your customers and their wants.

As an in-depth analysis of your targeted audience and individual engagements with them produces a reduced bouncing and increased conversions altogether.

Work On User Experience

From learning about your brand to becoming a customer, your leads are the one that you need to worry about.

So their experience, whether good or poor, levels your organization credibility in the long run. These experiences must be measured because ultimately, to measure is to market. Right?

So, let’s read on some parameters of users experience through the four-quadrant of User Experience,

A) Experience Strategy 

B) Interactive design 

C) User Research 

D) Information Architecture

These points of user’s experience work together and provide us with solutions of how to reduce bounce rate for your website. 

Let’s understand each with depth.

1) Experience Strategy 

You run the business, so you know this is run by interaction between both your user and your products and services.

So, the strategy for your business must be to maximize the benefits of both worlds and most importantly make your company’s intentions clear to your users.

Why?

This is done to establish a connection between users and your company’s products and services.

As an outcome, your users would  have a better knowledge of your company’s model and story, which would  draw them closer to it and help you build a relationship with them.

Let’s understand this with the help of an example of our current digital enigma, Amazon

Amazon delivers service to the satisfaction of not only their users but their sellers.

Let’s say a customer bought a new laptop but he chose the wrong model.

So, he can easily return it within a 10 days slot but that doesn’t mean Amazon would not  check if the product is not somewhat damaged or used wrongly. 

Amazon, on behalf of the seller, does a complete check by the delivery guy who has complete instruction and guide to do so.

Then after the whole inspection the product is returned.

You can see, here, how amazon provides service to both by bringing solutions for both the problems – return and inspection.

The satisfaction of any kind end-user is equally important for a business. So, whether it be a direct customer or a lead that sells your products, their experience must be your top priority.

2) Interactive Design 

Your users, today, are all for being star-stuck when you show an optimized design whether in products or in the website 

As a result, your users want you to keep up with current trends, build your website to work on all devices (especially mobiles), and include an Artificial Intelligence bot on your website that assists users in contacting you in an interactive manner.

The purpose of your business is using every dimension to provide responsive interaction to the satisfaction of your users. To attain this satisfaction follow,

A) Your words should have an emotional impact on your leads, build a relationship to what you are trying to provide them. This builds a long lasting relation between a business and customer.

B) The graphics such as image and typography should aid your user experience and some animation provide engagement and clarification at visual level. 

C) The framework and coding of websites must be authenticated for all types of device used by your users and especially mobiles as 51% of internet users use mobile

3) User Research 

Your user is in search of a product or service that he can understand and this understanding comes with the content you provide on the internet and you know consumers are getting smarter by the day.

So, the product and services you provide should have “how to use” forums or pages. A place where they can straightforwardly ask what they want to know.

For this, you have to provide them with platforms like your comment sections or weekly meets or even a one to one interaction.

Using social media and forums also, provide them a place to research and for you to promote your brand.

Now, for you to achieve all three sections of user experience this next point is of essence.

4) Information Architecture

You know for your website to get the best of your users’ engagement, you need to provide them with the best of your business and this can be obtained by you through proper planning and strategy.

But how can you do so?

You must know this is the step where the conversion would  start. So your users would  require a proper protocol to buy your product and service. 

Your information architecture must be based on solving further queries of your users, working with them to find the right product for them and providing alternatives to pay, follow through the sale. 

Giving them a hard time or working them up to do an anxious sale would  work out one time but a proper and patient conversation to sell would  make them your loyal customers.

Hence, user experience is another solution on how to reduce bounce rate of your website with proper organic engagement of your user.

A/B Testing 

You know how the trend on social media changes within weeks and even days. So, to keep an eye on the desire of your users you need to find a way to acknowledge their current choice.

For this acknowledgement you can perform tests such as A/B testing.

You want to know what A/B testing is?

A/B testing is a method to assess components of your website which are the least and most preferred by your users.

This testing provides you with data directly from users as to which type of color, design, picture, content and even logo would attract more users on your website.

Check out this picture…

This shows a similar webpage with different colour variations and data. Now this data can be used to Optimize a website.

Let’s understand the working of A/B testing,

You want to check a post that is to be posted on Facebook. And for your business, it’s important to know how users would  react to your post and their engagements, etc.

What you have to do is,

You have to build two different posts as such of the same content, Post A and Post B. These posts have different styles – photos, videos, design content and colour.

And, then post your A design on Facebook for 5 days and after 5 days take it off

You would  have to put design B for same amount of time,  

Now, after a timeline you are provided with data which you’ll analyze. 

And through an understanding of this clicking, hovering, and moving data. You analyzed what appeals to your user.

Your analysis would  help you to build a model for the content and get you more views, reads and engagement.

In respect, the data you receive can be used to Optimize your content within your website and social blogs which would  attract more traffic, reducing bounce rate and increasing conversions.

Bonus Tip

As a bonus tip, I would like to suggest to you one of the videos from my own channel.

In this video, you would  get to know the best 5 Ways to Decrease Your Bounce Rate in Google Analytics.

And believe me when I say this video is going to help you a lot in decreasing the bounce rate and increase conversions.  

Conclusion 

As a business website, you need the visibility of your website and through it, your product and services which would  be in search results when your users browsed for a particular keyword. 

The need for optimization of your website comes when your visibility is none, that is the visitor you are getting are leaving in 0 second session.

So, the first step for you is to understand the problem and then prepare a counter plan of the problem as the data revealed.

The analyzed problem is the high bounce rate of your blog or website. You know it has caused your website or blog to be pushed down in the search results by Google. 

The goal of your bouncing website or blog is to  achieve a reducing bounce rate, and we have covered this in the “ how to reduce bounce rate” section above.

So, you now know that you have to work on optimizing your website using high-end keywords to produce better content, and include alternatives to designs, i.e, test some designs.

For more marketing tips and services, you can schedule a free-of-cost 30-Minute Strategy session with our experts. In this call, our experts would  discuss your business and provide you with the free strategies that you can use to boost your sales and revenue.