Do you have a high bounce rate? You’re certainly not the only one.
You might think your website is perfect but the harsh truth is it isn’t. People are leaving and you don’t know why.
But don’t worry – here we have gathered all proven ways to reduce your bounce rate in no time.
Ready to learn all the tricks for a lower bounce rate and more conversions?
Let’s dive right in!
What is a good bounce rate?
First we should ascertain what a good bounce rate is so that you know what you are striving to achieve.
Now, what exactly is a bounce rate?
A bounce is when a user visits a site on any page and leaves without visiting other pages on the same domain. Your bounce rate is the percentage of all users who enter and exit on the same page, without making any clicks to other pages on your site.
OK, so far so good. But what is a good bounce rate?
The truth is, it depends – on your site, your type of business and goals.
Generally, content sites have a bounce rate of between 40-60%, while retail sites have a 20-40% bounce rate.
If your visitor clicks once and lands on a blog post, reads carefully all the way to the bottom and then clicks to exit, this is still a single page session and considered a bounce by Google Analytics, unfortunately. That’s why bounce rates are not all you should take into consideration, as they vary and can be somewhat inaccurate depending on the web page you have.
Still, you should keep your bounce rate in check. If it’s too high or even too low, this most likely means there are some problems that need solving. If it’s incredibly low, your Analytics tool might not be working correctly.
Did you know that bounce rate could influence your ranking on search engines too?
Let’s see how you could efficiently drive it lower.
How to lower your bounce rate?
Use popups the smart way
Using popups excessively is never a good idea. But if you use them correctly, they will turn into your best friend in your mission to reduce bounce rate.
The best decision is to display a popup just as the visitor is about to exit your page.
You have nothing to lose – they were going to leave anyway. But what if you make them stay a bit longer?
Show them a limited discount offer or something similar to respark their interest. Not only will you lower bounce rate, you can also increase conversions.
Fortunately, you can easily implement professional on-site messages with an intuitive popup builder like Catchfull. Our brand new product is almost here – if you subscribe now, you’ll get a 3-month free unlimited access. It won’t be long before you see for yourself the power of Catchfull.
Optimize page load time
The worst problem your page can have is being slow to load. This can drive visitors away even before they get a chance to have a look at your amazing content.
That’s why you have to deal with this first. It’s the number one reason users bounce. 47% of them expect your page to load in 2 seconds or less. More than that, and they get impatient and irritated.
What’s more, slow-loading pages are among the leading reasons for shopping cart abandonment for ecommerce retailers.
Users are hard to please, indeed. Make sure your website loads fast both on desktop and mobile devices to have the best chance of retaining visitors.
Offer good content
The best way to make visitors stay and reduce bounce rate is by providing them with excellent, relevant content.
Think about what your audience and potential customers are. Create targeted content instead of a generic one.
Whether it is a blog post or information about your products and services, make sure you include useful and attractive content that will help your readers. Don’t just stuff your text with keywords.
Think of what your visitors are looking for and give it to them. Relevance is key.
What’s more, pay attention to details. Make use of white space and format your text so that it is easy to read. Don’t make it too long or you’ll overwhelm your visitors. Use an appropriate font, headers, subheadings, bullet points, lists, and suitable images and videos to improve content readability and keep readers interested.
Provide logical and useful internal links
Internal linking is important. It can definitely lower your bounce rate. However, not if you overdo it.
Interlinking in every sentence is not a good strategy. This will make your text look weird and can backfire, making visitors bounce.
It’s all about relevance again. Include internal links only when they are truly helpful and will enrich user experience. Follow a logical structure.
Keep sidebar widgets and promotions to a minimum
Don’t cram your page with ads, offers and award emblems because you might overwhelm and distract your visitors and make them leave. Keep it reasonable and display only the most relevant page banners and links, as well as the best awards that will improve credibility.
Related article recommendations are also a great way to make your website “stickier” and provide genuinely useful content to your readers.
Focus on a clear CTA
Think about that: What action do you want your visitors to take?
Include only one, clear and compelling call to action. If you stuff each page with different CTAs, you’ll only confuse users and you’re more likely to end up with nothing achieved.
Your website should be easy to navigate so that customers can quickly find what they’re looking for. The opposite leads to higher bounce rates.
Improve your product pages
Product pages are tricky. If you offer too much information, you might overwhelm your potential buyers. But if you lack information, this can prevent them from purchasing as well.
Make sure to provide the right amount of information about your products or services – such as delivery fees, return policy, user reviews, etc.
Make it a habit to look at your product pages from time to time. In fact, go do it now – you’ll surely come up with several ideas on how to improve them, which will reduce bounce rate and increase conversion rate.
Include a site search option
Have you been to a site with no search bar and tried to find something only to get frustrated and give up? Now you know how some of your visitors must be feeling and where those high bounce rates come from.
Give users the chance to search your site to easily find what they’re looking for – this might be the key to them sticking around more.
Optimize for mobile
We shouldn’t even have to say that. More and more people choose to access websites on their mobile devices. It’s a shame when a website isn’t optimized for mobile because it automatically loses to the competition, even if it might be better otherwise.
Make sure not only your landing page, but all of your website is mobile friendly so that visitors aren’t tempted to bounce and seek what they need elsewhere without even giving you a chance.
Make your site easy to navigate
Users want everything handed to them with minimum effort. Not only that, but they have a very short attention span. That’s why it’s crucial to have an easy to navigate website.
Make sure your site has a logical and simple navigation menu they can immediately understand.
Providing a great user experience is crucial if you want to reduce your bounce rate.
Check for technical errors
If your bounce rates are too high, there might be some technical errors on your site that need fixing ASAP.
Go through your website like a normal visitor would and explore whether everything works fine. There might be a lot of broken links or plugins, forms not loading and so on.
While you’re at it, pay attention to the design and the user and customer experience too. What could you improve?
Customize your 404 page
Speaking of broken links, there will be time when visitors will get to this message – 404 page not found. That can often make them leave but not if you create a unique 404 page that is not only fun, but also helpful. Provide useful links and a search bar so that users can quickly go back to your main page or find what they’re looking for before they give up and exit. This will help lower your bounce rate.
Show credibility
People won’t buy from websites and businesses they don’t trust.
Strive to earn their trust by providing useful content and enough information about your products and services. Display photos and customer reviews.
Avoid spelling mistakes and typos, especially on your homepage – it doesn’t look professional.
Be sure to clearly and often display your contact details too. Always show prices.
You can also provide staff bios and photos if that’s suitable.
The best thing is, making your website trustworthy won’t only make visitors stay longer, but will also convert them into customers.
To sum up
Now you know that lowering your bounce rate isn’t mission impossible. Follow these tips and you will soon notice improvement.
One of the best ways to reduce your bounce rate is to use smart popups such as exit-intent popups to retain and convert visitors.
Perhaps you don’t know where to start? Catchfull will help you create the best popups and page banners to upgrade your website and lower bounce rate.
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Meanwhile, to further boost your business, check out these amazing popup ideas for conversion and sales increasement.
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