[Solved] 7 Proven Ways To Reduce Bounce Rate

Getting traffic to your website is difficult enough considering the algorithm changes that Google does annually. However, keeping incoming traffic from leaving your site is even tougher. It’s essential for website masters to keep visitors on their site as long as possible as it helps to reduce Bounce Rate.

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Bounce Rate is an important SEO factor. It’s an analytic measurement that helps Google determine if the content of your site is relevant to what the user is searching for, or if it has quality content to keep the visitors interested.

Google measures your bounce rate in percentages. The lower your percentage, the better it is for you. It means fewer people are leaving your site when they land on it. Having a high bounce rate is radically junk traffic visitors are going to the site but are exiting as soon as possible when they see the homepage.

Google measures Bounce Rate by two factors:

1. The amount of clicks within your site: meaning that visitors are viewing more pages than just the homepage.

2. The amount of time a visitor stays on your site: if they are staying less than 5 seconds, it’s considered a Bounce Rate.

Why do Bloggers want to keep their Bounce Rate as low as possible?

Keeping a low Bounce Rate helps to build rapport with your visitors, so they like and trust you. It’s directly linked to Click Through Rate (CTR). And it’s this CTR that is responsible for your site to convert traffic into money. Thus, building trust and credibility are a crucial component of a website because it affects earning levels. If visitors like you, and they like what you have to say and offer, they’re more likely to take action to whatever it is that you are suggesting them to take such as: signing up for your newsletter, downloading your e-book, buying a recommended product (affiliate commissions) or making a product/service inquiry.

So, not only is it important to get traffic to your blog but for conversion purposes, you’ll have to learn the techniques and tips to keep your traffic from leaving your site.

Tips to keep your Bounce Rate Low:

1. Professional Design & Layout

The look of your website can make or break you. The first impression is the best impression. You don’t want a site that looks dull. Credibility is crucial in internet marketing, so don’t ruin it by having a cheap or unprofessional looking site. If visitors can’t stand to look at the site, chances are, they are not engaged in the content. The first rule in internet marketing or doing any online business is establishing trust, credibility and authority. Having a well organized, clean, modern and professional theme helps to build that confidence, and it is a must for website owners to incorporate. This is not a Do-It-Yourself task, buy a professional theme or hire a professional to help you with this, preferably a professional web designer that has internet marketing visual experience.

2. Readability

There is no point in having great content if it’s not readable. Make sure the background is not distracting, no audio in the background or distracting/confusing advertisements that take away from your content such as pop-up windows or messages. I hate some Flash websites where they have animated or moving background; it’s very distracting when you’re trying to read a page (especially the ones with audio in the background!)

Use font colors and type that are easy on the eyes, like Arial, Verdana or Helvetica. Don’t make your links the same colors as your content text. How are visitors supposed to know what to click?

3. Easily Accessible Information

Having an organized, structured and a clean website is essential for your audience so they can find information instantly. A good navigation bar (without broken links) that’s accessible and well-grouped together makes things user-friendly and accommodates all types of audiences, young & old. Remember, your audience is searching for information to solve their problems or issues, make it very easy for them to get what they want.

Use things like Tags, Categories, Recent Posts and a Featured section to bring attention to several articles and posts. Don’t make pages/posts too long: people don’t want to scroll endlessly. Have paginations at the bottom so people can navigate to which section they want to go in the post/article.

4. High-Quality Content

People go on the net to search for information, ideas, inspiration or entertainment. Whatever it is they are searching for, make sure you stand out from the rest of your competitors by having High-Quality content. High-quality content is content that’s unique, well-thought, well-researched, well-written and shows that they're substance and effort put into the post/article. Spun articles or things that are duplicated do not have the same effect on visitors. Be as original and creative as possible and deliver good content for your visitors. Your visitors will love it, and so will Google.

5. Engage Your Audience – Use YouTube Videos

Few people know this, but Google spiders can crawl through Podcasts. So for some articles/posts that are very long and boring to read, consider doing a podcast so people can listen to it instead. Google can index it as well.

Google can’t crawl through videos, but they do know what the video is about based on the description of the video and the keyword tags used to describe the videos.

Make sure to post videos and podcasts that are relevant to the content of your post/page. Videos surely keep visitors more involved into your content, and they will get them stick around a lot longer. Whatever videos you decide to use, make sure that the related videos links are disabled, so visitors are not tempted to click on the next video and navigate Away from your site.

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6. Have a Great Title!

No one is going to click to read your article/post if the title already sounds boring. Make sure your titles stimulate curiosity. It should also have relevant keywords and provide solutions to whatever your visitor is looking for.

Powerful titles like the title of this post do one thing: Make people want to click on it. Thinking up of great titles can be tricky and tough. However, there’s no need to re-invent the wheel. Just check out similar posts from your competitor’s site and recycle what they use but with your keywords and your twist to it.

7. Fast Loading Websites 

Visitors hate slowing loading pages, and so does Google. This matters in SEO and page ranking. People who are not technical or web savvy don’t have a clue about this, but how well your site is coded matters in SEO. Pictures/images should be optimized, Codes should be coded to W3C standard, CSS minimized, files gzipped. You can analyze your Site loading speed using Google PageSpeed Insights. There you also get personalized suggestions to reduce your page loading speed.

What's Next? Go ahead and Optimize your site to decrease the Bounce Rate. You can leave off your queries by commenting below.