By John Pererson
Currently, for effective business development, a website is an essential and powerful tool. However, success is determined by more than just the site’s availability.
Regular improvements, optimization, and ease of use are necessary for a website to be functional and productive. For such tasks, companies engage various professionals, including SEO experts, marketers, designers, customer service representatives, and a whole onshore or offshore development team. In general, website owners place a great deal of emphasis on SEO promotion, but they frequently overlook one crucial factor: the bounce rate. In this article, we’ll explain what the bounce rate is, how to lower it, and why the bounce rate is vital to consider when analyzing a website.
What Is a Bounce Rate?
A high bounce rate indicates that the site’s pages do not meet their user expectations. The potential causes for this can be poor site navigation, slow page loading, no mobile devices optimization, weak UI/UX design, and even unattractive text content of the site. It is sometimes essential to hire a large staff of specialists to eliminate all of these flaws – but this option is not always feasible for many reasons, including financial ones.
Website owners frequently search for ways to offer high-quality content while lowering expenses by employing offshore development teams or SEO specialists. Professional website optimization will be equivalent to improved traffic and conversions, so this approach to work is excellent for business.
The bounce rate is the ratio of visitors who leave after viewing the first website’s page to the total number of site visitors. That is, these are users who have either viewed only one page of your site or stayed on it for no longer than 15 seconds. Furthermore, returning to the previous page to view the search results, following some link on a website, closing the browser tab, or entering a new URL in the address bar are all considered bounces. For a website owner, a high bounce rate indicates that the users cannot locate the information or services they require, for search engines, in turn, it signals that the website is irrelevant or uninteresting to visitors.
However, it’s not all black and white. A high bounce rate isn’t always a bad thing, especially if the visitor can receive all of the information he requires on just one page of the website. For example, your site is a food delivery service with all the necessary delivery and contact information within one page. It may satisfy a potential customer who will soon leave your website and call you directly. The bounce rate in Google Analytics, for instance, will increase, but a phone call and order from a client will still be a successful conversion. As a result, the site optimization strategy you choose should be based on the activities and services you offer. It is also worth remembering that each industry has its own set of acceptable bounce rates.
Bounce Rate’s Impact on Website’s Search Traffic
Lately, search engines have been paying increasing attention to website user behavior. One of the primary elements for rating a site in search engine results is the behavioral aspect. Hence, the higher your bounce rate, the worse your site’s position in search results will be. It demonstrates that the website does not fulfill the needs of its users and is neither attractive nor helpful. It is significant to concentrate on lowering the bounce rate since it directly affects the conversion and website popularity.
How to lower your website’s bounce rate
- Improve the site’s performance
- The simplest method is to increase your website’s page load speed. It means that if your site is slow, the visitor will most likely become weary of waiting and go to another website with a faster response. According to statistics, web users are not ready to wait more than 2-3 seconds for a page to load. You can solve this issue quickly by enlisting the assistance of IT development teams.
- Enhance the quality of text content
To minimize the bounce rate on your site, fill your resource with gripping and easy-to-understand texts. After all, poor-quality content and a lack of readable information are the most common reasons for leaving the website. The longer a user stays on your site reading content, the lower the bounce rate. Consider engaging an offshore specialist for SEO content writing, which is now a common practice.
- Boost the site’s usability
It is a typical drawback of many websites. The lack of comprehensive navigation makes the user’s engagement with the site more complex and confusing. To ensure that a visitor has a positive experience on your website, you should guarantee that the user can quickly find what he requires.
- Ensure the site’s adaptability
Site adaptability means that your website works well on different types of devices. Develop a high-quality mobile version of your site to attract more visitors, as smartphone users are more likely to surf the Internet than PC users.
- Improve the look of your website
Design is your website’s calling card. It doesn’t take long for users to appreciate the look of a site and see if they want to stay on it. Therefore, we recommend that you keep an eye on the relevancy of your site’s design, and if it still has to be updated, no problem: hire an offshore professional. The main thing to remember is that simplicity means beauty and a lower bounce rate.
- Remove the pop-up windows
Pop-up windows divert visitors’ attention from the site’s primary content and prevent them from finding the information they need. Besides this, such a website solution may annoy the users. If for some reason, you can’t eliminate pop-up windows, you may configure them to be less intrusive by setting them to display only after a particular amount of time the user has spent on the site.
- Create a site-wide search engine
Users frequently access the website to find something specific. Adding a keyword-based internal search into the site will allow users to find the information they’re looking for faster, which will both boost conversions and reduce bounce rates.
Tools that can assist with bounce rate management:
- Google Analytics is a service for comprehensive analysis of websites.
- Google Search Console is a service that keeps track of website traffic information.
- Crazy Egg is a service that helps you understand how visitors interact with the site.
- SumoMe is a WordPress plugin to improve the usability of the site.
- Screenfly is a tool that allows you to see how your website will appear on different devices’ displays.
Conclusion
The bounce rate is something to keep in mind when analyzing your website. This metric can provide you with valuable information regarding existing issues on your site and give you a better understanding of your target audience’s needs. A low bounce rate is not just a characteristic that directly impacts your site’s position in search engine results but also an indicator of your website and advertising efficiency. To make your site user-friendly with a clear structure, use the services of the best development teams and designers, search engine optimization experts, and create content accessible to people.
