How To Reduce Your Website’s Bounce Rate

Getting people to visit your website is one thing, keeping them there is a whole different ball game.

If you’ve signed up for Google Analytics, you’ll have some good insight into how your website is performing. If you’re yet to do this, this blog post can help you get started. One insight Google Analytics offers is your website’s bounce rate, which shows you the number of website visitors that “bounce” away from your site almost straight away. If your bounce rate is high – or if visitors are spending less than 1 minute on there – then you should be looking to make some changes.

There’s no exact science to keeping visitors on your website – your site won’t always be everyone’s cup of tea – but there are a few ways you can tweak your site to give it the best chance at converting browsers into buyers, and bringing down that bounce rate.

Here’s how to bring down your bounce rate:

Emphasise purchase points

Your visitors are on your site to shop, not to waste time. They’re used to instant gratification from eCommerce websites, so don’t make it difficult for them to buy; if they can’t see a purchase point on each page they’re more likely to head elsewhere for all their online shopping needs. Be sure your purchase call to action (CTA) buttons are placed in clear view on each product page.

Untangle your sitemap

Clear navigation is the key to making sure your site visitors become buyers; their journey through your website should be easy and smooth. Remove any excess steps in the buying process, and make sure site visitors can find your products and services from your landing page, as they’re likely to bounce if they are not able to locate what they came for. Lay out your sitemap and make sure there are no tangles – if your customers get lost on your website they are likely to leave and never return.

Cut your content

Is your website’s landing page a mass of text? If site visitors are faced with bulky written content when they land on your website they’re not likely to stick around to read it through. While content is important for pleasing the search engines and providing relevant information to your site visitors, it must also be kept to a minimum if you hope to keep customers on your website. Craft content carefully, targeting keywords that are likely to score you points with the search engines without going overboard.

Introduce visuals

While you’re cutting down your written content, you should also be introducing visual elements to your site and making sure they’re front and centre. A large, high-quality featured image is much more engaging to your website visitors than that block of written text we mentioned above. Consider adding media content such as video and audio to your website too, as your customers will find this engaging and will be likely to linger on your site. Make sure images are relevant to your business, encouraging your visitors to engage personally with your brand.

Invest in your website hosting

If your website is slow and clunky your site visitors won’t stick around. It’s arduous for your website visitors to wait more than a few seconds for a page to load in this day and age, so invest in the power behind your site to make sure it’s delivered in a timely fashion. Solid state drive powered virtual private server hosting (SSD VPS) from UK2 could be the hosting package you’re looking for; powered by lightning fast solid state drives, this cloud based solution will provide you with the speed you need.

Create a website to be proud of with online services from UK2.