The high bounce rate is one of the most common conversion rate factors. When you set up a website and invest countless hours in integrating and promoting items on it, it can be quite frustrating to have a high bounce rate.

According to Google Analytics, the Bounce rate is single-page sessions divided by all sessions or the percentage of all sessions on your site in which users viewed only a single page and triggered only a single request to the Analytics server.

According to SEMrush, bounce rate, after Direct website visits, Time on site, pages per session is the 4th most important ranking factor for SERPs. Google Analytics considers that a visitor has interacted with your site if he has visited at least one additional page.

The bounce rate in the summary report on Google Analytics is the bounce rate of your site as a whole. It is the average number of bounces on all your pages, divided by the total number of visits on all these pages during the same period.

You can also track the bounce rate of a single page or a segment or section of your site. The bounce rate of a single page is the total number of bounces divided by the total number of visits to a page.

A bounce occurs when a user enters your page and no longer interacts with elements on that page or other pages of your site. A bounce can be triggered by any number of events:

• Return to search results
• Closing the browser
• Entering a new URL in the address bar
• Follow an outbound link
• Remain inactive and terminate the session
• Read the entire page but do not trigger any events, then exit.

All of these actions can affect the bounce rate. This means that an action or social event, such as Playing or downloading video too can all have an impact on the bounce rate.

Bounce Rate and Time Spent on Site

In addition to the bounce rate, another factor is the measure of time spent on a page in Google Analytics. It is, as its name implies, an estimate of the time users spends on average on a given page.

The reason that time spent on a page is a rough measure, rather than a clearly defined one, is that Google Analytics requires two clicks to calculate the precise time spent on a page: an “in” click – usually the click on the link that takes the user to a page in the first place – and an “out” click, usually a click on a navigational element that takes the user away from a page.

it doesn’t matter if a user clicked on a page, reads to the end of the article. if they closed the tab without clicking on the exit, that session is recorded as a bounce. The same applies to sessions in which a user opens a link in another tab and leaves the original tab open before closing their browser.

It is simply too difficult to accurately measure the bounce rate and time spent on the page, but it is still worth trying to keep your bounce rates low.

It is important to examine your bounce rate in the broader context of your site in general. This will allow you to determine more accurately whether the problem is related to a specific page, a page type such as a blog or product pages on your site, or your site as a whole.

If your measurements of time spent on the site are correct, but your blog pages have a high bounce rate, the problem may be related to your content. On the other hand, if your bounce rate is high and the time spent on the site is low, you may not be giving visitors what they want more generally.

To determine if the bounce rate is not an issue, you can look at measures of page time and average session length in Google Analytics. If the user spends a few minutes or more on the page, this sends a positive signal to Google that they found your page very relevant to their search.

If the user spends less than a minute on the page (which may be the case for a properly optimized homepage with a quick-access CTA form), consider encouraging the reader to read some of your related blog posts after completing the form.

Be sure to reconcile more general information on the site to ensure that you are not dealing with an anomaly on one page that will affect your entire site, or that you are not missing a larger problem by focusing too much on the details.

If the bounce rate of one of your pages is abnormally high and you notice that people spend less than a few seconds on the page, it is likely that your page is blank, returns a 404, or does not load properly.

You can check the Search Console under Cover to solve the problem. Keep in mind that a problem like this can cause Google to remove your page from search results.

Read More: On-Page SEO:10 Essential Factors for Ranking on the First Page

What Is a Good Bounce Rate?

Having a “good” bounce rate depends on your site and your business objectives. If you are an affiliate, the purpose of your page may be to deliberately send people away from your website to the merchant’s site.

In this case, you are doing your job well if the page has a higher bounce rate. Or if you have a one-page website, for example, a home page for your e-book or a simple portfolio site, it is common that your site has a very high bounce rate, because there is nowhere else to go.

But you still need to pay close attention to your site’s bounce rate, which is an overall indication of its “strength” or appeal. In general, you should try to reduce this figure as much as possible. The bounce rate can even influence your search engine rankings, thanks to Google’s new automatic learning algorithm, RankBrain like the diversity of links, depth of content, keyword matching, etc.

It is therefore obviously in your best interest to optimize this measure. In general, a bounce rate of about 30% is considered good, while a score of more than 50% is considered negative and may indicate landing page problems.

If someone visits your post and spends a few minutes reading it and leaves without visiting any other pages, the bounce rate will be 100%.

The general rule is the following:

• 25% or lower: Something is probably broken
• 26-40%: Excellent
• 41-55%: Average
• 56-70%: Higher than normal, but could make sense depending on the website
• 70% or higher: Bad and/or something is probably broken

it is imperative to be aware of the inherent shortcomings of the bounce rate as a measure of performance and what it means for you as a marketer.

To improve your bounce rate, you need to know why your users are not attracted to your site’s content, design, etc. but the bounce rate is not necessarily negative. Your targeted and expected bounce rate should rather reflect the objective of your web page.

You can analyze all the bounce rates of your pages using a mathematically intelligent Google Analytics function called “Weighted Sort”. When selected, this function sorts your bounce rates by importance by comparing them to the number of sessions.  If you want to build your own weighted sort, I suggest you read the article by Dr. Peter J. Meyers.

1. Improve the Speed of Your Site

Site speed is part of Google’s ranking algorithm, so it is good to focus on SEO. Google wants to promote content that provides a positive experience for users. Certainly, a slow site can provide a bad experience.

If it takes more than a few seconds for your page to load, your visitors may get tired of it and leave. You can improve the speed of your pages by using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and GTMetrix.

According to Radware data, a connection delay of  A 500ms connection speed results in up to a 26% increase in peak frustration and up to an 8% decrease in engagement.[4]

Before you even think about looking at the content on your pages, make sure that your visitors can actually view them within a reasonable amount of time.

In addition, slower page loading is one of the leading causes of shopping cart abandonment for e-commerce retailers. Surprisingly, only a 2-second delay in load time during a transaction resulted in abandonment rates of up to 87%. [5]

Read More: 11 Effective Ways to Improve Your Website’s Page Speed

2. Make Your Site  Readable

You should know that writing for the web is different from writing for written publications.  Avoid overwhelming your visitors with heavy paragraphs that span entire pages, as well as using line breaks or including an image between sentences, which can be just as annoying as huge walls of text.

Improve your online writing skills to increase the amount of time people spend reading your content. Here are some ways to make content less visually intimidating:

• Use white space to make your content more accessible.
• Proper use of headers
• Frequent sub-headings
• Appropriate images
• Bulleted lists

This makes your content more accessible and your readers can quickly scan or browse through it to identify the points that best fit their needs.

Remember that if your visitors can get what they want without any trouble the more likely they are to stay on your site.

High-quality images and videos are also very effective ways to engage users. You can even use high-quality images as a full-screen background, as they have proven to be effective.  You can use these images as full-screen backgrounds, parallax backgrounds, background slides, or as online images next to your call to action.

Videos are even more effective in capturing users’ attention and motivating them to take action.

3. Use Widgets and Promotions in Moderation

Your blog pages are an ideal vehicle for providing content, offers, and other relevant materials to your audience.

However, stuffing the digital margins of your content with ads and promotions is a sure-fire way to overwhelm your visitor and tempt them to bounce. If you choose to include rewards and trust signals in your sidebar, make sure they come only from the most reputable and trusted sources so that they serve a real purpose.

Give your visitors enough time to immerse themselves in your content before throwing themselves at them with newsletter subscription offers or other promotions. Make sure that navigation on your site is not confusing.

• The presence of a search field on your blog allows your visitors to explore your site further. You know your site at your fingertips. But it’s easy to forget that what seems intuitive to us is not to our audience.
•  Check if menu items are easy to click on a smartphone.
• You can make your site stickier by providing really useful and valuable content such as a recommendation of related articles that expand on the topic covered in a blog post to your readers.

4. Optimize for Relevance

One of the main factors contributing to high rebound rates is relevance. When you blog about a keyword, make sure your content is related to that keyword.

Consider user intent when targeting keywords to provide the most useful and relevant content to your audience. Is your reader looking to solve a problem, learn, or buy something? The more relevant your content is to users’ requests, the more likely they are to stay once they arrive on your site.

5. Create a Compelling Call-to-Action

First of all, know that your site should allow visitors to find and do what they want, quickly and easily.

if you want users to take specific actions when they read the content you offer them, you need to include a very clear call to action.

Don’t overwhelm your visitors with dozens of CTAs. The more CTAs you include on a single page, the more likely you are to confuse and overwhelm your visitors.

6. Make Useful Internal Links

Including internal links in your content to reduce your bounce rate is a good strategy that can work well because it provides Analytics with that essential second click to accurately measure the time spent on the page.

However, if you go too far with internal links it can backfire by making your content look a little sleazy or cheap.  This doesn’t add much to the user experience. On the other hand, it can confuse your visitors and discourage them from clicking on one of the internal links.

When choosing internal links and anchor text, focus on relevance and a logical linking strategy. Try to link to other pages that focus on topics that are very relevant to the theme of your blog.

If you have a useful blog post that describes a specific topic in great depth and would be interesting to your audience, you can reference it from other pages.

Resist the temptation to create internal links to every article in your archive, and focus on links to useful articles or pages that are very relevant and potentially useful to your visitors.

Read More: 8 Internal Links Optimization Strategies for SEO & UX

7. Make External Links Open in a New Window 

When you open external links in the same tab, your users must click on the “back” button to return to your site. Not only this is annoying, but it will reduce the number of page views on your site and increase the exit and bounce rate.

8. Optimize Your Product Pages

There are several optimization possibilities that could not only decrease bounce rates but also improve conversion rates. To convert your product pages, you need simply to get your visitors to make a purchase or a transaction. if your visitors do not make a purchase or a transaction it may be for a number of reasons.

Sometimes it’s simply buyer hesitation or price aversion, but sometimes it’s because the information they want on a product is not provided. This may be details about where a product was manufactured, details about your return policy, or user reviews.

If you offer too much information, you risk overwhelming your visitors. If you offer too little, your prospects may not feel they have enough information to make an informed decision.

It is important to remember that bounce rates on product pages may be slightly higher than on some other types of pages and may vary more depending on the nature of the product or service in question.

However, if you notice abnormally high bounce rates on your product pages, be sure to A/B test these variables to get the best engagement from your visitors.

9. Facilitate the Navigation of Your Site

A non-navigable site means high bounce rates. The easier it is for users to search and find what they are looking for, the more likely they are to stick around.

Searching the site allows visitors to find what they want.  You can imagine how frustrating it can be if your visitors find themselves in front of “Page not found” or “No results” for a query that should have returned dozens of results.

You need to design your site so that everything is spoon-fed to them with the least amount of effort for your visitors. if you force your users to make the slightest effort to get what they want, they will simply go to another site. That’s why it’s essential that navigation on your site be as simple as possible.

Imagine a typical browsing session on your site from the point of view of a user. The visitor arriving on your site and normally only a few seconds will suffer to evaluate your content to decide if that page is not exactly what they are looking for, or conversely, your site could potentially give them what they want. if the menus or image links on your site do not help them find the page they are looking for they will leave your site.

The navigation on your site must be clear, immediately understandable, and allow the user to move from one part of your site to another in complete transparency. Visitors should not have to guess where they are on your site to know how to get around, and they should not have to follow the artificial paths you have set up to guide them through your sales funnel

Of course, your site’s search functionality will probably never be as good as Google’s, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore or neglect it. Still trying to make your site as easy to navigate as possible.

Read More: 8 Steps to Build an Effective Website Structure for SEO

10. Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly

The number of users accessing the Web-primarily from mobile devices is increasing every year. Not optimizing your site for mobile is practically a call to neglect a large proportion of users.

Websites that have not been optimized for mobile are not pretty to look at on mobile devices and they don’t load too quickly either.

So optimizing your site for mobiles should be your number one priority. If it takes more than a few seconds to load your site for a mobile, it doesn’t matter how hard you try to design it.

Even if your website has been implemented using proper design principles, the homepage may not be as user-friendly. Sometimes, when a page is compressed into a mobile format, some key information is moved below the fold.

So your cell phone users, instead of seeing a title that matches what they saw when they were searching, only see the navigation menu of your site.

This may mean that the page does not offer them what they need and they leave your site.  If you see a page with a high bounce rate and no obvious problems immediately jump out at you, test it on your cell phone.

Conclusion

In this post, we have seen several ways to reduce your bounce rate. But, don’t forget that in order to keep your bounce rate at the right level you must constantly create quality content.

Overall, you need to persevere and remain consistent to increase your site’s audience.  If you do not renew the content of your site, your readers after several visits always come across the same articles.  Your lack of effort and investment will make them leave. They will quickly understand that they have already seen everything there is to see and that there is nothing new on the site.

If you apply the above measures, you should begin to see an improvement in your bounce rate.