A bounce rate refers to how long a user stays on your site and can be determined by taking a deep dive into Google Analytics. If your website is easy to find and SEO (search engine optimisation) isn’t the problem, then 9 times out 10 there’s something not quite right with your site. A website should aim to capture a user’s interest within 10 – 20 seconds and prompt their interest enough to take an action. This means your website needs to clearly demonstrate its value to a user’s search, otherwise the user will look elsewhere. If your bounce rate is high, there are a number of reasons why a user may be exiting your page and luckily, most of them are pretty easy to fix. In today’s article, we look at how to reduce bounce rate on your website and break the top five web elements you should consider when structuring your site.
How to Reduce Bounce Rate on Your Website?
The key points on how to reduce bounce rate on your website can be summarised as:
- Provide better user experience
- Keep the visitor focused
- Optimise your site speed
- Structure your content logically
- Make your website mobile friendly
How to Provide a Better User Experience?
A user experience or ‘UX design’ refers to how easy your website is to navigate and if it’s intuitive to a user’s movements. This encompasses all aspects of a website design, such as text, images, colours, and placements of call to actions, as well as chat bars and popups. For example, if your website has a harsh colour background, it may make reading difficult. Or a pop-up window that comes up straight away without letting the user read any content first, may prompt them to exit the page. If a user has trouble finding information quickly, whether it’s through misplaced CTA buttons, hard to read font or a lagging scroll bar, you might find your bounce rate is a lot higher than it should be.
Top tips for how to improve bounce rate; where user experience is concerned, include the following considerations:
- Is the font easy to read (Sans-Serif types are best) and the right colour?
- Are your CTA buttons placed where a user would find them?
- Do you have a popup window and does it popup too quickly?
- Is the navigation easy to use?
How to Make Sure Your Website Isn’t Too Busy?
Those born before the 2000s will remember just how busy and colourful 90s websites were. And though they did bring a certain element of nostalgia, sites with clashing colours and too many things competing for attention will likely be ditched for one that’s easier to read. For example, a homepage should feature snippets of services and products, but the ultimate goal is to drive a user to a dedicated page. This means keeping descriptions to the minimum and not trying to put every bit of information on one page. Unless you’re an eCommerce site, aim to have webpages with content that’s no more than a few scrolls.
Need your website redesigned? Contact us at Resurge Digital, the leading Brisbane digital marketing agency, today to chat with our web design specialist on how to improve bounce rate.
When to Improve Your Site’s Speed?
When it comes to dealing with how to reduce bounce rate, one of the most common reasons users exit websites is a slow speed. According to Google, a recommended load time should be two seconds or less. Anything higher, and a user is likely to abandon the site for one that loads quicker, it is important to be aware, however, that not all site speed optimisation opportunities and recommendations are always going to be actionable for all websites. A similar point may be made for the structuring of content, as a user will scan a website for keywords related to their search. If your website fails to structure content properly, this may prompt a user to exit the page for a website that gives them an immediate answer.
How to Structure Your Content?
As the attention span is growing shorter by each generation (you can thank social media for that), it’s important to structure your content the right way. For example, a news article will typically involve an eye-catching headline and aim to give the reader the important information within the first few sentences. This same tactic should also be used with web content, as a reader shouldn’t have to wade their way through multiple paragraphs before they find their answer. Headings should be utilised throughout to help break the text, segmenting sections of content for an easy read.
Why Optimise for Mobile Devices?
Mobiles are quickly becoming the preferred browsing platform of choice, which why it’s so important to ensure your website is mobile friendly. This means your website should have a responsive design that slims down to a phone’s screen size and be easy to navigate with a finger.
Considerations for how to improve bounce rate on website by making it more mobile friendly include:
- Have a minimum of size 12 font
- Make sure links aren’t placed too closely to one another
- Don’t use Adobe Flash or anything that takes up too much bandwidth
- Keep web design simple
- Avoid using popups
- Use Google’s mobile friendly test to see how Google thinks your website looks to users
- Read our article for more tips and tricks on creating mobile friendly websites.
Reliable Website Design Brisbane Business Owner’s Trust with Resurge Digital
We hope you’ve enjoyed reading our article on how to reduce bounce rate on your website.
If you’re finding your business doesn’t seem to be getting much traffic or leading to many conversions, get in touch with Resurge Digital today for a website audit. You can call us on 1300 659 035 or email [email protected] and our web design specialist will be in touch shortly.