By Maulik Patel

18 Apr 2019

Does it hurt?

When you see that your website has failed to keep users stick for a long, do you feel uneasy?

I always think why bounce rate goes high with a website made of animations, content, and everything else to entertain users. All it seems just not enough because users simply deny to spend more time on website. They jump from one website to other in a blink of eye.

Why?

Before I tell you, let’s have a quick brief on Bounce Rate

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of users landing on your site and leave it without further navigation.

Higher Bounce Rate = Users Exit Early without Navigating

Lower Bounce Rate = Users stay and navigate

As I promised, I will tell you why, even after creating a heaven like website, users jump off your site at the speed of light.

The harsh truth – no matter if your website looks like heaven, being a user, if I won’t find something useful that relates to me, I am not gonna waste another minute.

If your bounce rate is high, your site lacks some parts essential for users to stay long and navigate. It could be anything – an irrelevant content, complicated navigation, broken links, or something you are not aware of.

Don’t worry….

This article will give you 7 missing parts to complete your website’s puzzle and stop users from switching to others.

1. Useful, Relevant & Readable Content

I can go on and on when it comes to content. There is just too much to explore and we have only one section to brief it. So I will give you four quick formulas on creating compelling content:

Catchy Titles
Stories
Case Studies
Personal Experience

I always admired the Headspace website. It has everything a user needs to believe that there is a problem to his solution for which he came to the website in the first place. Let me show you.

Source

Why users visit a meditation site? Obviously, to find peace, health and happiness. This website promises it all. It makes you helpless to explore more and believe why you will find your peace here only.

That’s what content is all about – a promise to users’ problem. Create easy, relevant and story-rich content for your users to dwell in.

2. Keywords Matching Search Queries

Gone are the days when SEO people focused more on keywords relevant to their business only. Today, users are the ruler of Internet. They won’t spend much time on your site, if they don’t find words relevant to their search.

The most effective way to increase relevancy of your site as per users’ perspective is by including keywords matching well with users’ search queries

Source

Start prioritizing users’ query first over your business. Instead of piling up keywords for your website, research on queries that users often ask. Make a list of users’ queries applicable to your business and use them as a part of content. Ensure the content is natural not forceful.

3. Effortless Navigation

Users are lazy. They want to eat delicious food served on plate with a spoon to eat quickly and glass of water to drink afterwards. Now imagine, what if you tell these lazy users to use mind in finding the page they are looking for. Will it work?

Not at all.

They instantly think of trying another site with a least bit of effort.

““It doesn’t matter how many times I have to click, as long as each click is a mindless, unambiguous choice.”

― Steve Krug, Author of Don’t Make Me Think

Serve your website the same way – as effortless and mindless as possible.

4. Minimize Loading Time

Would you like to wait for a doctor when you are suffering from intense pain? Would you like to wait in queue for an event which is going to start in a second?

The truth is nobody wants to wait when they are curiously looking for something they want. When websites take more time to load, they increase waiting time for users. And who likes to wait at all.

Source

More loading time -> increase in waiting time -> higher bounce rate

You know well what happens if users see your site with big opened eyes waiting for loading time to end. Err…… they won’t wait at all. They look at your website with an irritating glance and step on another one taking less time to function.

Test your website to calculate how much time it takes to load. Make sure each page takes least time possible to come to life.

5. Don’t Disturb Users

Once I was looking for best communication blogs. Article of top 30 communication blogs ranked first on Google. I opened it and clicked the first listed site. I took merely 1 second to jump on second site.

Do you know why?

The website, I clicked first, popped up with notification asking for my email id instead of giving me a few quick tips on communication. It disturbed my search. Another drawback was it asked my email id without first building trust. Was’t I right to choose another site?

Of course, I was.

“According to a study in 2013, 70% of users said that irrelevant pop ups annoy them the most.”

Don’t disturb users with pop ups. Let them explore more about your business before you ask for something.

6. Engagement on Social Media Networks

As you know by now, bounce rate decreases when relevant audience visit your site.

But,

How will you reach targeted audience in the first place?

Don’t tell me you still believe in “Build and They will Come” phrase?

Throwing party is not enough if you don’t invite users. Same way building website is not enough if your targeted users are not even aware of it. Once your content-rich website is ready, it’s time to spread the word.

A fruitful way to reach maximum users is social media marketing.

Join business-relevant social media groups
Participate in discussions while promoting your website only where asked
Make your own group and invite users to join it
Promote your content with familiar hashtags on Twitter
Host webinars on social media networks

When it comes to social media marketing, sky is the limit. Keep learning, keep improving and keep implementing.

Follow 80/20 rule. Experiment with different social media strategies and work more on the ones with maximum results.

7. Take a Good Care of Mobile Optimized Website

As per StoneTemple data, 58% of web visits came from mobile devices in 2018.

Desktop website is not a priority anymore.

Smartphones offer comfort – an extension to laziness. Users won’t bother themselves to get up from bed and start the computer when they can have it all on their mobile. For the sake of comfort, users want mobile-friendly website for direct access to products or services on their fingertips.

If your website is not ready for mobile that means you can’t give comfort to users. On the contrary, you are pushing them away from your website and giving them an opportunity to explore competitors.

Is this what you want?

Wrapping Up

Now that you have 7 ways to reduce your bounce rate, what are you waiting for? Test your website, find errors responsible for higher bounce rate, repair everything and wait for the day to come where users don’t intend leave your website without turning into a customer.