5 Easy Ways to Reduce Your Bounce Rate and Increase Your Ranking

by Kimberly Clark June 19, 2019

For an e-commerce business, merely creating a website and putting up content will not increase the rankings in search engines. Measuring your digital marketing efforts to track records of all key performances indicators (KPIs) is essential. If your site is not gaining the desired amount of leads and conversions or email sign-ups, probably the KPIs are not performing well. One such indicator you need to pay attention to is the bounce rate. High bounce rate is concurrent to low lead generation.

 

Bounce rate is the proportion of visitors or customers, who lands on a page on your website and leave without navigating away from it to other landing pages. It is different from the exit rate. Exit rate includes the percentage of people who leave your website from a page after visiting multiple pages on it. Bounce rate is more complicated than the exit rate. A high bounce rate implies visitors are not finding the relevance or connection with your services. Here are some easy ways to help reduce the bounce rate of your website and increase its search engine ranking.

 

  1. Optimize for Relevance.

 

The moment a user/visitor enters your website, they try to find relevant content. The content, images of products, and services have to be in tune with your audience’s interests. Let’s look at some pointers of relevance inclusion.

 

Readable Content– The readability of web page content is important to hold visitors. An easy-to-read format with a precise message without complexities generally grabs attention. None of us want to go on reading any disorganized text. Keep the paragraphs short. Try using subheadings, bullet points, images, charts here and there, ask questions to get involvement.

 

Relevant Audience– Your business should reach the target audience to increase sales. Content plays a key role in this again. Prospective consumers demand good information. The focus should be to treat engaging, valuable, and educational content to allow customers to think along the same lines about a business. According to a database, 82% of consumers, on reading custom content, feel relevant and positive about a company.

 

Target Keywords– Another vital aspect to optimize relevance is to target keywords that can offer high-value traffic. For a business to grow organically, the keywords you select should complement the content. If a site has a high ranking but doesn’t provide relevant content to the keyword topic, the bounce rate will go high. Consequently, the business will lose audience trust. Make sure to select high-value keywords that support the content for a good reading experience.

 

  1. Convincing Call-to-Action.

 

Call-to-action or CTA is to make a site visitor take action and respond or reflect on the marketing message. After going through the relevant content, it is obvious to target for some action. Or at least make users check what is in store for them. Create a convincing and clear call-to-action strategy on a website. It should be quickly noticeable to the user on a page. You can find some amazing examples of CTA to prompt users to click.

 

Ideally, a single CTA on one web page is preferable to avoid confusing customers. But if you wish to include more, do not overcrowd your web page. A HubSpot blog confirms that personalized calls to action perform 202% better than basic CTA. Based on the data, ‘‘smart’’ CTAs do better because it takes into account the differences of several audiences. Blog posts or web pages should address to different requirements and include diverse CTAs separately through these channels.

 

 

Some CTA strategies to boost sales:

 

Locations on the Page– You can include a CTA in the navigation bars, at the side of content or at the end-of-page.

 

Make CTAs easy to Find– Site visitors should be able to find it easily. The web page layout, changing the text on a button can bring a difference.

 

Communicate the Offer– Where will response to CTA lead the customers? Keep communication transparent. Make them aware of the type of subjects, how often they will receive the information and whether the information will solve their personal or professional problems.

 

Prioritize CTAs– If you have more than one CTA, prioritize them. The one having the highest priority should be easy to find and convenient to respond.

 

  1. Ensure a Mobile Friendly Website.

 

By 2019, the number of mobile phone users, in the world, will surpass five billion. This clearly indicates the potential of mobile marketing. Customers using mobile phones, tablets, iPad, access the internet primarily through such devices and look for different web experience. So, creating a website and optimizing it for these devices have become crucial for boosting sales. Failing to do so is resulting in high bounce rates.

 

Furthermore, include engaging content for a mobile-friendly website. You do not want customers to enlarge the screen every time they want to read something. If it is user-friendly and interactive, the bounce rate will automatically decrease. Including videos is one way of increasing interaction. Make sure the videos are not too long to consume the user’s entire mobile data. A video explaining your products and services may entice your target audience more than reading about it. Small and large businesses can look up for online learning software to create a mobile-friendly website and ensure a lower bounce rate.

 

  1. Optimize Page Load Time.

 

No matter how pretty or user-friendly a website is, all efforts go in vain if the page loading consumes a lot of time. If a web page doesn’t load within 2 seconds or less, the chances for the bounce rate to increase is high. Most of the marketers assume the content is to blame. But in reality, the problem arises when the visitor does not even get the chance to read it. Website speed optimization will influence conversion, visibility, and usability.

 

You can optimize a page load time by

 

  • Using a content delivery network (CDN)
  • Finding a possible type of hosting (shared hosting, V.P.S., dedicated server)
  • Reduce the size of images
  • Reduce the number of plug-ins
  • Minimize JavaScript and CSS files
  • Optimize database in CMS
  • Reduce the use of web fonts
  • Reduce redirects

 

For mobile devices, the load time is the deciding factor for bounce rates. Users are likely to leave sooner due to slow loading.

 

 

  1. Make Navigation Easy.

 

Lastly, for a good user-friendly experience, the website should allow easy navigation across all landing pages. Users look for effortless and clear direction to the product pages or services. Focus on a good website design. For instance, when a user arrives at your site, they will scroll through the landing pages and seek out for a page that will offer the real information. If they cannot easily steer through it, they will bounce faster.

 

Limit distracting ads, pop-up, and avoid other disruptions to offer a good user experience. Irrelevant ads are annoying to users. The trick lies in its placement on the page. Do not include unnecessary drop-down menus or other image links. Generally, the sides of the web page are good for placing the ads to avoid the distraction of the user’s attention. Observe your site navigation and think about your prospective audience. If you wish to place ads, find out how to do it without distracting or irritating users.

 

Conclusion

 

To increase your website rankings, Google analytics and other tools can help track user engagement. Optimize the user experience and try to increase the functionality of a site search. Take a holistic approach to reduce the rates and observe the alignment of the content with the user database.

Kimberly Clark
Kimberly Clark is a content marketing specialist in IT & SEO, who helps clients increase their revenues by improving their organic traffic and building powerful campaign through Google Adwords. She can be reached via email at kimberly@linkingaces.biz.