10 Ways to Lower Your Website’s Bounce Rate

photo by laurenatclemson

Your bounce rate is a key indicator of how well your website or landing page is working for your visitors.  Think of it as a vote against your website.  When a visitor bounces off your website, in effect they have said “No Thanks.”  Since we all want increase the popularity of our websites, here are ten great ways to reduce your website’s bounce rate and have your visitors saying “Yes Please.”

1. Give customers what they are expecting to find.

A landing page needs to be an extension of your PPC advertisement.  If your ad is talking about purple widgets and your landing page is all about unbreakable widgets you greatly increase the likelihood that your visitors will bounce off the page and go to a competitor’s site.  The more specific your ad the greater the need for an exact match (headline, copy and images) on your landing page.

2. Remove autoplay videos

Autoplay videos are the bane of nearly any web site.  “How do I stop this” is the first thing many visitors think when a video just starts playing.  Instead of pushing (forcing), your visitors to watch your video, figure out how to pull (entice) them into watching your video.

3. Make your site easy to navigate

If your navigational structure looks like it is paying homage to a cross between a Family Circus cartoon and the periodic table, you need rethink your navigational structure.  Visitors are inherently lazy.  Make it easy and intuitive for them to find what they are looking for.

4. Simplify your writing

Is the web copy easy to understand?  Remember that an eighth grade reading level is probably just about right for most visitors.  Unless your target audience is very technical, avoid industry jargon and technical terms that the average visitor might not understand.

5. Trash any popups

Popups distract customers from their goal of buying stuff.  There are usually better options available for delivering information.  Popups are aggravating and aggravation leads to a higher bounce rate.

6. Fix the broken links

One of the most frustrating things that a visitor can find is a broken link.  Regularly check all the links on your website and make sure they work as expected.

7. Don’t Require Registration

Customers want to buy right now.  Forcing customers to register prior to making a purchase will deter some people.  Let visitors buy without registering and see if your cart abandonment rate improves.  If you want to capture additional information not covered in the checkout process, give visitors the benefits of registering and then leave the decision up to them.

8. Simplify your web site

This is not to be confused with simplifying the writing.  Present your visitors with a limited number of choices.  Too many choices just confuse and frustrate people.  Faced with confusion people tend to do nothing, which means that they bounce, off your site.

9. Break copy into smaller chunks

Most visitors scan a website instead of reading.  We scan web copy to make sure the material is relevant before we commit to reading every word.  If the only choice is to read a long block of text or leave, many visitors will leave.  Bulleted lists, numbered lists and paragraphs limited to three or four lines are more in tune with how your visitors actually read website copy.

10. Give them a Reason to Stick Around

Your visitors make a decision to stay or leave your website very quickly (1-2 seconds is about the norm).  Visitors are constantly asking themselves “what’s in it for me?”  The quicker you demonstrate the value and benefit you are providing for your visitors the more likely they are to stick around.

Why do you bounce off of a website?  Since we’re all about improving website conversion rates, we’re especially interested in the reasons why people bounce off of a website…so let us know what you think.