If you have a website, then you know how important it is to gain new viewers and maintain your current client base. However, search engine algorithms are ruthless, and there are countless competitive websites that can sway the attention of your visitors. If you’re not getting the results you’ve been looking for, chances are that you can make some improvements to decrease the bounce rate on your website.
The bounce rate shows you how many visitors landed on your website and left without exploring it and going to another page. While it’s impossible to compel every visitor to go through your website thoroughly, a bounce rate that’s too high can be detrimental to your business. Fortunately, you can implement some solutions to make it lower and improve the overall user experience. Here’s what you can do to decrease the bounce rate on your website:
Create an ADA-Compliant Website
If you want to improve the usability and visibility of your site, you have to meet the ADA Compliance Website. The ADA Compliance is a law passed in 1990. As its full name suggests (the Americans with Disabilities Act), it’s designed to prevent discrimination and provide accessibility regardless of a person’s disability.
In the United States alone, 15% of adult citizens experience some sort of hearing problems, and about 13% are visually impaired. You need to ensure that everyone who visits your website experiences no issues displaying it and reading its content. If you don’t know how to do it on your own, consider letting a professional perform an accessibility audit and suggest necessary adjustments.
Optimize Page Load Time
Regardless of their age and background, people don’t like to wait. If your website takes more than 2 seconds to load, it’s game over. Your content may be much better than anything that can be found on the websites of your competitors. It’s not going to matter if you make your readers wait – they’ll move on to another page and support another business instead of yours. As such, if you want to lower the bounce rate, you should improve your site’s speed.
Provide Clear Website Navigation
Another reason that may cause your viewers to bounce off your website is unclear navigation. Take a look at your site from the perspective of an ordinary visitor. As a creator, you know where and how to look for relevant information. Is this task equally easy to other users?
If you’re not sure, it’s time to change that! In case your page has a table of contents or a drop-down menu, these features should be easy to locate and use. Your visitors must be able to find their way around your website effortlessly and intuitively.
Make Sure Your Content Is Readable
You can’t overlook the way you present the content on your website. Sometimes you want to upload something as soon as possible, which results in huge amounts of text that’s not readable at all. Whenever a person sees a wall of text, they’re more than likely to click off and look for content that’s organized in a more functional way.
Making sure your content is clear and readable is one of the best SEO practices. A good rule of thumb is to use bullet points, bold keywords (from time to time – don’t overuse it), subheadings, and charts or images wherever it’s helpful. Feel free to test these solutions to see if the bounce rate of your website goes down.
Avoid Ads and Popups
If there’s one thing that never fails to spike your frustration meter, it has to be the abundance of annoying ads and popups. If your website attacks your viewers with ads from the get-go, it’s no surprise that your bounce rate is high.
It’s true that popups can help you grow your email list and gain long-time supporters. However, they have to be carefully designed to serve their purpose and not deter your readers. That’s why, if you’re guilty of displaying aggressive ads on your website, it would be best to avoid them altogether or limit them significantly.
The Bottom Line
If the bounce rate on your website is too high, it can hurt your business in the long run. It’s a serious issue resulting from the lack of knowledge and misuse of SEO practices. Fortunately, there are many effective solutions that can help you decrease it. Our list is by no means conclusive. However, it’s a great starting point that can help you detect any weaknesses on your site.
Feel free to treat it as a checklist. Visit your website and go through each point to see if you could make such improvements. Chances are you happened to overlook certain points. Follow our advice wherever applicable – we guarantee you’ll see the bounce rate on your website going down.
