7 Strategies to Slash Your Bounce Rate

Is your website not producing the number of sales, list signups, or customers you want?

It could be the bounce rate. Bounce rate is a measure of how many people enter your site and then leave without visiting another page on your website.

Although bounce rate is not one of the behavior metrics that affects your SEO, it is an important metric for turning website visitors into customers. At a minimum, you know that if a person only visited one page on your site, they didn’t move to a contact page or cart page, and that means they left your site without taking the next step. Unless you’re getting a lot of calls from people who visit just one page on your site, reducing your bounce rate is critical to improving your website revenue, and we’ll show you how to do that.

Reduce Your Page Load Time

one of the most easily corrected problems that leads to high bounce rates is a page that loads slowly. The Internet is supposed to be fast, and when pages load slowly, people get frustrated and abandon your page before they ever even get there.

There are a number of utilities that can check the load time on your pages. But remember that load time is not just a single number. If the content or other specific elements load too slowly, potential customers can get frustrated and abandon your page too soon.

Be Mobile Friendly

Many people access websites through their phone. For an increasing number of users, this is becoming the primary way they reach the Internet. If your website isn’t designed for mobile users, they can get frustrated and leave your site without really engaging with your site or content.

With dynamic design, there is no excuse to not offer a responsive website that will adjust to mobile visitors. However, it’s a good idea to make sure your designer has tested your site with all the major platforms. And if you notice a high bounce rate with one platform, you should evaluate that one again.

Target the Right Keywords

Your SEO strategy can have a huge impact on your bounce rate. Keyword searches early in the buying process, often called informational searches, are associated with higher bounce rates.

That’s because in the early part of the search process, users are less inclined to browse around your website, looking for additional information or considering products. If you want to decrease your overall bounce rate, choose more topics that are late in the buying process.

And while we’re on the subject of keywords, it’s important to make sure the meta description of your page is not just compelling, but also relevant. The meta description is the short passage that appears under your web page topic on a search results page. A common source of bounces is when a visitor clicks on a page because of the meta description but finds out the page doesn’t cover the promised information.

Add Media

Another reason people bounce from your page is if it doesn’t look suitably professional or interesting. You can make your content more interesting and professional-looking by adding media such as:

• Pictures
• Video
• Diagrams
• Audio

All these types of content can help visitors engage with your website, increasing the likelihood that they’re going to visit other pages of your website, especially if the pictures and audio link people to other pages.

Use Better Linking Strategies

By definition, a bounce is someone who only visits one page of your site without visiting any others. If you use better linking strategies, you can get people to click on links to move to another page.

Most importantly, give website visitors a clear call to action early on. Tell visitors what you want them to do, and give them a clear path to do it.

In addition, provide internal links to other, relevant pages on your website. This could be blogs providing more details, your “about us” page, or “customers also bought” product links.

Include Testimonials and Customer Stories

People engage with stories. Seeing a brief blurb about how people benefit from your product or service will make people more likely to click to read more–or to click to your contact page. Combine this with media to make it even more engaging.

Write and Design Easy-to-Read Content

Finally, you want to make sure that your content isn’t the problem. Visitors to your site want content that is easy to scan and read. This means content that has:

• Short paragraphs
• Clear headings
• Lists

If your content doesn’t include these features, visitors to your site are likely to be overwhelmed by big blocks of text and leave without clicking on another page.

Let Us Help You Get That Bounce Rate Down

If people are visiting your site and bouncing before really engaging with the content, we can help. We can help you design an attractive site and get compelling content that will drive visitors to stay on your site, click, and, ultimately, convert to customers. Check out some of the results we’ve gotten for other customers and please contact us today to learn how VEA Technologies can help you.