Bounce rate does not depend on “total time spent on a website or webpage”. Even experienced people believe that when a user left a website within 10-15 second is called bounce rate, but it’s not true.
If you are one of them it’s time to learn about it. You can’t reduce bounce rate without knowing that what is bounce rate, and how it calculates?
The percentage of single Page visits on a website is called Bounce rate. When a user leaves your website from the landing page without visiting any other page than that is called bounce.
Visitors who visit your website bounce off without visiting a second page.
If your website has higher bounce rate then it indicates that visitors are not found any related content on your website.
Again I am explaining it does not depend on total time spent on a website, it depends on the total page visited in a single session. If a user visits 3 pages in 10 seconds it never considered as a bounce.
If you successfully reduce bounce rate then this will help you to increase conversion rate.
Bounce Rate is not always bad. When user found his requirement on a very first page which he visited then he doesn’t need to visit the second page. You get conversion
Calculation of bounce rate
A bounce rate of a web page= total number of bounces on a page (in a given time period) / total number of entrances on the page (in the same time period)
Adjust bounce rate on your website
This is the most effective way. You already know that bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits.
Sometimes users don’t need to navigate another page when his search query is satisfied on a very first page. So, this shouldn’t count as a bounce rate. Google analytics can’t understand this directly but provides the manual solution for this.
It is true that single page visit is considered as a bounce rate. But, when users come to your website, find 100% relevant content on that page and complete the goal, then that visit should not count in bounce rate to get actual bounce rate.
You can filter out those visits by adjusting the time spent on that web page using advanced segments in engagement report.
This will surely reduce your bounce rate, infect you will get true amount of bounce rate.
Don’t target inappropriate or irrelevant keywords
Targeting the wrong audience is the worst way. This will dramatically increase bounce rate. Choose keyword wisely to target appropriate and relevant audience. Your digital marketing strategies can be broken by bad keywords.
Keyword research is the crucial part to get a right audience on your website. Choosing right and high—quality keywords can also send valued customers to your website.
You can also track referral traffic using Google analytics. Filter the poor quality and spamming traffic which results in high bounce rate and exclude it using filters in Google Analytics.
Read Also: dofollow and nofollow links in seo
Quality of landing page always matter
Have you ever visited any local store, or any services provider office, or mall? What will you first check?
Well! Research suggests that 85% people are impressed by their office interiors.
Your website is your online office, make it the best. If your landing page quality is not good, users will probably leave your website without visiting any other page. This will increase bounce rate. So, make your landing page the best.
Sometimes by just fixing UI of a landing page may improve bounce rate. The attractive, clean and neat design will more attract then the cluttered websites.
Lack of headings and sub-headings may increase bounce rate. Don’t forget to create attractive and relative headings and subheading for landing page
Use a relevant call to action
A Clickable button, video, link, or banner on the page can be used for Call to action.
You have created great content for your website; visitors are like to read that content. Now it’s time to convert them into leads. Don’t lose them by not using CTA or weak call to action.
Optimize your call to action by taking care of every element to take visitors to the next stage of the funnel. Event text size and button size also matters. Use contrast color for a button which stands out and easily findable for web users.
Make a call to action relevance. For organic search, the title Meta displayed on SERP is your call to action. If you have title ‘download Free SEO Guide’ but that will redirect a user to another page where he can’t find any guide for SEO, then your bounce rate will definitely increase. So relevancy always matters.
Read Also: introducing new google search console
Attractive Title Description May Affect
While searching something on Google, I usually visit a website by reading its title and meta description. Maybe you are one of them.
Meta description and Title told about the webpage. So make it extremely relevant. Don’t make people fool by using irrelevant title Meta, by that you will get a visit, but a user will definitely leave that page in a couple of seconds.
Target your main keyword in title and Meta to describe your page subject. Don’t forget to add a call to action in your Meta description.
Recently Google has updated meta description character limit. Now, its grown from 160 characters to almost 230 characters. Take benefits of it.
Write a killer content
We always heard that content is king. Even Google doesn’t like the thin content, but writing thousands of words without meaning is not good enough. Readability is more important.
Your content must be neat and readable. Some bloggers write awesome content, but the lack of good formatting results in high bounce rate.
Just create your content in an easy-to-read format. Make your text readable using header tags h1, h2, bullet points, images, large fonts, white spaces, contrast colors to make content more readable. Break down your content into a small paragraph
This practice will definitely help you to reduce bounce rate.
Optimize your website speed
Does Website speed matter at high bounce rate?
Yeah, absolutely matters.
In less than 10 seconds user decided whether to stay on website or not. Nobody likes to stay on the slow website.
Speed is also one of the Google ranking factors. You will lose your ranking as well. The faster loading website has low bounce rate.
Measure your current page speed using tools and optimize it if required.
Read Also: ECommerce SEO Strategies To Rank On Google
Optimize navigation and make it effortless
We already know that when a user comes to your website and leave a website without navigating another page then it’s called bounce visit.
Probably User hasn’t found relevant stuff on the webpage. You should give a chance to visit the relevant page on your website to reduce bounce rate. Proper navigation will work for you.
Keep your navigation simple and sober. Use should find every webpage from navigation. Don’t make it complex. Placement of navigation is also matters. Top of the website or on the left might be good for your website.
Make Website For Mobile Users
The mobile-friendly website is now a primary requirement. Even Google also give weight to a responsive website. If your website is not mobile friendly it will not perform well on the Google.
Check out if your website is responsive or not. Make sure that your website is mobile friendly and open perfectly on every device.
Research stats that 95% people are using mobile. The mobile-friendly website will decrease bounce rate and double your conversion rate.
Read Also: Increase Your Website Traffic
Use target=”_blank” for outbound links
Do you think open every link in a new page will affect on bounce rate?
Whenever we visit on some website and found any link on that page. We usually click on it if found useful. If the new webpage will open in the same tab, sometimes we press back button to complete a task on the first page.
If there are more than one external links which user found valuable then he clicks on that much time and chances are that the press back button. This will irritate him.
Always use target=”_blank” to open every external link in a new tab.
Internal linking helps to reduce bounce rate
Users are landing on the page with some goal, like to read an article, or to purchase some products or hire some services etc.
After completing their purpose users leave the website. Here Conversion rate may not decrease but this visit will count in bounce rate, although it completes the conversion.
You can give a user a chance to explore your website by interlinking. For example, you can add a related article, related products, or service pages link on that page. So the user may visit that page.
We have shown 11 different ways to reduce bounce rate on a website which will also useful to improve conversion rate. Quality of landing page, content and website speed is a lot of matter on high bounce rate.
Hope you have enjoyed this article and learned something interesting. Comment below to share your thoughts, the best activity which you followed to reduce the bounce rate, and which of the above strategies are you thinking to apply in future.