Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who left your website after viewing the page they landed on. The average bounce rate for a regular website is 40.5%, according to Kissmetrics. For eCommerce sites, the average bounce rate can vary from 20% to 40%.
If you see a higher-than-average bounce rate in your Google Analytics, your website might need some improvements. A high bounce rate usually implies that people aren’t finding what they need on your website or they don’t seem interested enough to click on anything else. In other words, you’re either targeting the wrong audience or you’re failing to provide a good user experience. Many other factors can increase your bounce rate, such as annoying pop-up ads, slow page speed, and poor landing page design.
Are you getting high traffic to your website but no conversions? Here are 5 things you can do to improve your bounce rate so you can retain those visitors.
Avoid Popups and Music
Think about how you feel when an advertisement pops up when you had just entered the web page. You probably want to exit immediately, right? Irrelevant popups and unnecessary background music are the fastest ways to drive your visitors away. Try to stay away from popups unless you have a very attractive offer for people to click or sign up for your email list.
Make Your Copy Readable
No one loves to read essays. Your landing page copy should be engaging and eye-catching. If you already have good content, don’t neglect formatting. People tend to shy away from long paragraphs and hard-to-read fonts. Try to break down your content with subheadings and bullet points. Choose your typography carefully – don’t sacrifice readability over an abstract cursive font.
Add Internal Links
If you have blog content, add relevant internal links throughout the articles to guide your audience to other useful pages. Fashion retailers also do this very well by linking related items below a product, showing what other people also love or what you should pair the item with. When you create internal links, think about what else your audience would love to know after reading your piece of content.
Set External Links to Open in a New Tab
Back button fatigue is a symptom we’ve all experienced while browsing the web. If your website has external links to other resources that are not part of your site, make sure to set them to open in a new tab. It’s easy for web visitors to get lost in mindless clicking and never bother backtracking to your website again.
Link to Your Social Media
Make your social media profiles visible and easily accessible on your website. Encourage visitors to sign up for newsletter. Even if your web visitors don’t have desire to click on other pages, they can be curious to check out your social media profiles. They might end up liking what you have on Instagram and follow you — that’s another way of retaining your visitors and connecting with them so they can visit your website again.
