Accepting the fact that your site has a high bounce rate is just like being told that your dear child is not the best in the schoolyard; So sad!
You must be thinking why my little angel didn’t get what he deserved. If you understand this example, it’s time to enter the digital world and walk together among the numbers of Google Analytics.
Bounce rate is the sad story that tells you that your dear site is not that popular among others, contrary to what you think! Just as everything in this world may be considered beautiful from one person’s point of view and ugly from another person’s point of view, the issue of bounce rate is equally personal and polar.
Some sites may be satisfied with a bounce rate of 80% and others consider a bonus rate of 20% too much.
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What causes these fundamental differences? Your type of business
So, before reading the rest of this article, think about whether the type of your business is such that the user comes to you only to check a specific topic, or whether your site is content-oriented and you expect the user to come and stay.
It should be noted that some SEO experts believe that the bounce rate is one of the topics that is checked by Google’s Rank Brain algorithm, and therefore it affects the optimization of the site. (Which, of course, is not unreasonable!)
A small but very important note: What is the big problem with the bounce rate?
You must have noticed the famous temple on the page number in your Google Analytics. Some months you may have enjoyed the significant growth of this number and sometimes you may have been shocked by its sudden decrease.
But what is wrong with this Google Analytics metric?
Time on page is an approximate measure, not an exact one, meaning that this metric will give you the correct number when it receives two specific actions from the user. One-click to enter the site and another click to exit. (Which is often through clicking on a specific element, CTA, etc.)
Therefore, if the user stays on your site for 30 minutes and reads your 8,000-word content to the end, and closes your site without any action or exit click, you are proud to receive a bounce rate! (Bounce rate is also for sessions that the user closes without closing the browser page and pushes your analytics bounce rate up!)
As a result, many SEO experts as well as digital marketers, under the excuse of this inherent flaw and bounce rate error, abandon this issue altogether and pay more attention to criteria such as dwell time and scroll depth, because they believe that the bounce rate is not a number at all. It is not honest.
But as an SEO expert, I advise you not to underestimate this uncertain number in any way, and if you have a catastrophic bounce rate or your bounce rate fluctuations are crazy, definitely read this article.
In this article, I will teach you how to keep your pages more coherent by reviewing 10 very important tips to reduce bounce rate so that the user does not leave it between the earth and the sky and does not increase the bonus rate of your site.
1) Optimize page load time
Many webmasters think that their bounce rate is high because they have not written acceptable and attractive content for the user.
Although the content is a very valuable and important topic, before pointing to the content, we must see if the user had a chance to read at all, or if the site is loaded so slowly that the user prefers to use another website!
Among all the problems that a website may have, the loading and speed of the site is the most important issue that you should pay attention to and have a special plan for.
It doesn’t matter how good or bad your site’s content is, the fact is that 47% of users expect a page to load between 1-2 seconds or they will leave you.
This is especially true for mobile devices. According to Radware reports, only a 500 milliseconds delay in connection can lead to a 26% increase in exits and an 8% decrease in engagement with your site.
As a result, before any change of content strategy, make sure of the speed of the site and the loading time of your content.
2) Content formatting is an important factor in reducing bounce rate!
All of us in our web browsing have hit a scary wall of content by clicking on some titles. Personally, this leaves me no choice but to leave the site, even if the content is rich and intelligent, the way the content is presented is very important.
Content formatting, compliance with writing rules, use of visual effects, etc. are some of the things that can make even weak content look strong and encourage the user to read it.
Your work philosophy should be that the user should make less effort to understand, study, etc. Less user work means increasing user comfort, increasing engagement, and reducing your bounce rate.
How to reduce the bonus rate by formatting the content?
- Use different subheadings to break up the content
- Use of attractive graphic images and infographics
- Sufficient use of white space
- Shorten paragraphs
Tip: Keep the balance. Some sites have put a picture on the site for every sentence or have shortened their sentences, and in a way, by exaggerating the above cases and with good intentions, they have fallen from honor. Note that this issue can annoy the user as much as heavy blocks of text.
3) Ads, and sidebars increase your bounce rate!
One of the things that can significantly increase the bounce rate of your site is the frequent and exaggerated use of sidebar ads and the presentation of so-called amazing offers. I’m not saying don’t do it at all, but try to make these offers surprising. Your content and sidebar ad should be valuable enough to entice the user to click on it.
Of course, it should be noted that you should be a little cautious in using bounce exchange services. As useful as these services can be, they can easily distract the user.
Therefore, I advise you not to rush at all if you use these services. Let the user enter the content, read several paragraphs, then use your sidebar to offer suggestions.
4) Put the bounce rate against the time on site
As mentioned in the introduction of the article, relying on the bounce rate number is a mistake, on the other hand, ignoring this percentage is not wise at all.
To check and analyze the bounce rate better, you should check it along with time on site and in parallel.
By doing this, you can easily find out whether this high bounce rate is due to the overall structure and incorrect content of the site, or whether a specific page carries a high bounce rate!
If your time on-site criteria are reasonable, but you have a high bounce rate, likely, your content is not of good quality. On the other hand, if the bounce rate is high and the time spent on the site is low, you should review your content strategy and structure.
5) Make your content closer to what you claim
Apart from all the things you need to consider to improve the speed of the site as well as the formatting of the content. Your title should be the most compatible with the content you provide to the user.
What do I mean
Some SEO experts and content producers use attractive titles and highly searchable combinations of this word in their content and important parts of their content structure to get a better ranking in a specific keyword in a shorter period, and by doing so, they try to Search engine rank better but the thing is if your content is not exactly what you claimed. Do not doubt that you have given yourself a high bounce rate with the best site speed and the most professional formatting!
My advice is that if you are going to target a specific keyword, you need to make sure that the written content is completely consistent with the title and the questions that may arise in the user’s mind.
To better understand this issue, you should ask yourself some specific questions:
What is the user looking for by searching for this word?
What other questions might arise in his mind by searching for this word?
How can I answer these questions?
Is he going to buy it it? Or does he just want to increase his knowledge on a specific subject?
Where is the user in the marketing funnel?
And ….
Trick: To write attractive content in line with the needs of the user, I recommend you to write the questions that are created around your main word, arrange them in a logical order, and with a clear answer to each question, attractive and of course practical content. Put it on your site or blog.
6) Place a clear CTA on the site
One of the important topics that help to reduce the bounce rate as well as increase your conversion rate is the use of the call to action button.
Always keep in mind that all users want to do something after reading an article, watching a video, etc. The work that has the most benefit for them and can meet their needs.
With an accurate needs assessment and placing an attractive CTA, you can easily bring the user closer to what they want and reach your goal yourself.
A two-way deal!
Tip: Do not use many different CTAs. Giving the user freedom is great, but not here! You should only direct the user to one path. Giving the user freedom of action in these situations usually reduces your conversion rate significantly. So be a little inflexible in the number and also the content of CTA!
7) Internal linking; to balance
Many webmasters and marketers are fans of internal link-building (in bulk!) in their content.
Although this issue can significantly reduce your bounce rate (because the user clicks on only one link, the bounce rate is removed from your site and the time spent on the site is entered for him), this makes your content boring and weak.
I recommend you give only a few links (with the right CTA) to your relevant, popular, and important content instead of terrible internal linking. By doing this, you have not only been able to reduce the bounce rate, but you can also show your other valuable content to the user by meeting his needs.
8) Update your product pages regularly
If you provide a lot of comprehensive information about a product on the product pages, you will overwhelm the user. On the other hand, if you put little information, the user will think you are weak and will not understand your vision.
One of the most important reasons why users do not go through our sales funnel is that they are not ready to buy. But another reason that can greatly affect their purchase is that they do not see the quality and correct content of the product and prefer to use another site.
So what should be done?
Categorize the information you intend to provide about the product completely and display the names of the categories to the user. By doing this, you will not only have an orderly page but also provide complete information and on the other hand, you will not drown the user in content.
Tip 1: Try to update your product description especially if your product is competitive.
Note 2: It should be noted that in general, the bounce rate of product pages is higher than the rest of the site. (Of course, this depends on the nature of your product and service.)
However, if the bounce rate of your site is very high, I recommend you to change the content and various effective elements of your product page by A/B testing and by observing it, one or a combination of them can be used to reduce the bounce rate. And use conversion rate improvement.
9) Search capability; a good solution to reduce the bounce rate
Another thing that helps to reduce the bounce rate of your site is the optimization of the search element of the site.
In this section, I will suffice to mention a few very important things.
Be sure to have search capabilities on all your pages.
Optimize your search page if a user searches for a specific keyword. Your optimized user interface can improve his user experience.
Optimize your 404 pages so that if the user does not find the desired result, he does not immediately leave the site and can use your suggestions.
10) Optimize your site for mobile phones
Another extremely important topic that most sites are still not paying attention to is the issue of the mobile-friendliness of the site.
This issue beyond the discussion of bounce rate is very effective in the SEO of your site. If your site is not optimized for mobile viewing, almost all your chances of competing in the digital space will be lost.
Because not only do Google crawlers crawl your website on mobile devices, but more than 80% of searches are now done on mobile.
So it’s better to start working now!