What is bounce rate and how to reduce it?

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Do you know what bounce rate is? Have you analyzed it and it's too high? Do you want to reduce it? In this article, we'll share with you 11 proven methods to reduce your bounce rate and increase your conversions.

High bounce rate is one of the most common conversion killers. If most of your users leave your website on the first page, you have no chance of converting them into subscribers or customers.

Let’s take a look at what bounce rate is and how you can reduce it.

What is bounce rate?
bounce-rate-analytics

The bounce rate is the percentage of users who arrive at your website and decide to leave without going to a second page.

A high bounce rate indicates that you were unable to convince the user to stick around and take your call to action (i.e. purchase your product or service).

A visitor may leave your site by clicking a link to a different website, clicking the back button to leave your page, closing the open window/tab, typing a new URL, or other actions caused by errors in the web hosting.

Now you're probably thinking that's normal user behavior, right? Well, yes, it is, but there's a good bounce rate versus a bad one.

Let's take a look at the average bounce rate by industry benchmark and determine what a good bounce rate is.

Average Bounce Rate by Industry + What is a Good Bounce Rate?
You may be wondering what a good bounce rate is. Well, the general rule is that:

80% + is very bad
70 - 80% is poor
50 - 70% is average
30 - 50% is excellent
20% or less is likely to be tracking error (due to duplicate analytics code, incorrect implementation of event tracking, or third-party add-ons like live chat plugins).
While the above metrics are good to start with, bounce rate varies across industries and content type.

If you have a higher than average bounce rate, it could be due to many reasons such as slow loading time, poor navigation, poor design, poor usability, lack of clear calls to action, etc.

Let's see how to improve your bounce rate.

How to reduce bounce rate?
Identifying and fixing issues with your landing pages can easily solve your problem. We'll walk you through some of the most common mistakes that cause high bounce rates and how to fix them.

Before you get started, it’s a good idea to identify the top pages with the highest bounce rate. To do this, go to Google Analytics and click on Behavior » Site Content » Landing Pages.

Landing-page-bounce-rate

Knowing your core pages will help you identify problem areas and fix them.

1. Provides a better user experience (UX)

Neilsen Norman Group, the leading usability research consulting firm, defines user experience as:

"User experience" encompasses all aspects of the end user's interaction with the company, its services and its products.

User experience is the overall feeling of a user while interacting with your website. A good user experience is when a user finds a website not only easy to use but also enjoyable.

Creating a usable website that looks equally good on all platforms and devices is the first step in the right direction. Take a good look at how your users behave and what influences their decisions.

In this article, you will find many other tips that fall under user experience. Remember that it is the overall feeling a user experiences when browsing your website, so it is all part of user experience.

2. Optimize the location of your Call to Action (CTAs)

Most users decide whether they like or dislike a web page within the first few seconds. Often, by simply glancing at the visible area without scrolling. This area differs from device to device.

Now that you know what your users are searching for, you can optimize this area. You should immediately describe what you are selling and there should be a prominently visible call to action.

Make your call to action clear and honest. Users who believe they've been tricked will have a poor user experience, which is the number one reason for high bounce rates and low conversions.

3. Improve loading speed

As we mentioned earlier, users make a decision about a website within the first few seconds. You don't want to waste this time by showing them a blank page loading scripts and downloading content.

With tools like Pingdom and Google Page Speed , you can optimize all of your site's landing pages.

To speed up your website, you should optimize your images, use a content delivery network, add better caching, and consider switching to a faster hosting provider.

One of the quickest and easiest ways to keep your website speed up is by using a CDN .

4. A/B Tests + Targeted Landing Pages

Your headline or call to action may not be working. That's why it's important to run A/B tests.

Use different content strategies on each page and run A/B tests to see how each one performs.

You can also create different landing pages, targeting different audiences, regions, keywords, etc.

If you cater to an international audience, you can detect a user’s location and show them a localized landing page. Showing content to users in their own language, currency, and cultural background greatly improves the user experience.

5. Use videos to connect with your audience

Videos are very engaging and grab attention more than text or even images. You can use a full-screen video as a background or add it alongside your call to action.

Videos are powerful. You can use animations, music, audio, narration, colors, and a host of other persuasion tools.

You can create a very effective video presentation on a small budget by hiring a freelancer for example.

6. Use high-quality images to capture the user's attention

Images are another effective tool you can use to reduce your bounce rate.

The reason why so many websites use high-quality photos as full-screen attorney email database backgrounds is that they have proven to be very effective. Companies like Google, which were famous for their plain white background and minimalist designs, now use high-quality images on their landing pages.

You can purchase professional photos from a number of stock photography websites. There are even some that offer royalty-free images as well .

You can use these high-quality images as full-screen backgrounds, parallax backgrounds, background slides, or as inline images alongside your call to action.

7. Let your customers speak for you

You'll see a testimonials section on many websites, which displays one quote from one client at a time. Turn your testimonials into success stories with real narrative elements like audio, video, and illustrations to show your clients. People love success stories and would like to read more.

You can also create a testimonials page where everything is exclusively user testimonials.

8. Make your website readable

The majority of content on most websites is in text format. It is unfortunate that this important part of any website's user experience is often the most neglected.

However, it is one of the most important and crucial elements that can shape the visual appeal of your site.

You need to make sure that the text on your page is easily readable on all devices. It shouldn't be too small, otherwise users will have to squint or zoom in to read it. Use font sizes that are large enough on smaller screens.

Typography or readability is not just about choosing the font size and color. You also need to make sure that the text on your website looks good. There should be enough space between lines, padding, and margins to make the text look clean and nice.

Another important point to consider is the language and style you choose to use on your website. Use language that is easy to understand in a normal conversational tone.

9. Show your credibility

Consumers are getting smarter every day, which means they carefully examine an offer before making a decision. After the initial evaluation of your product, consumers quickly look around to find out how trustworthy your company is.

It's not easy to trust a new company with your money or information. A new user doesn't know how good your business is and what kind of reputation you've built.

Showcase your awards, endorsements, certifications, quality ratings, and industry affiliations. Make your website secure and display security seals. This builds trust with users so they feel comfortable handing over their credit card and personal information.

10. Re-hire users who want to leave

Despite all your efforts, sometimes a user may want to leave your site. It's not your fault, maybe something came up in their personal life and they just had to leave.

Now, if this happens you have 2 options: you can let them go or convert them into subscribers.

There are plenty of Inbound Marketing tools , including Hubspot, that allow you to launch a pop-up when a user is about to leave your page and show them a targeted message at just the right time. This is a very effective technique with a proven success rate.