A Guide for Business Owners: How to Reduce Your Online Bounce Rate

In the post-lockdown world of today, it’s absolutely essential that your business generates a plethora of online leads on a daily basis. More consumers than ever before are now using the web to search for companies and complete transactions, which is why you must go above and beyond to increase your internet conversion rate.If you’re to perform this all-important task in a highly efficient fashion, you must first make an effort to reduce your online bounce rate. This will help you to engage your web-based audience members on a deeper level, which in turn will increase the likelihood of them sticking around on your company website for longer periods of time.

Reducing your online bounce rate is by no means going to be an easy task to undertake. For advice on how to achieve this crucial feat, be sure to read on.

Understand your audience

If you’re to stand a chance at pinpointing why it is your bounce rate is currently so high, it’s advisable that you get to grips with the wants, needs, and specifications of your target market. Understanding your audience members on a deeper level is one of the most important tasks that you face, simply because it will give you a better idea of why they are leaving your site so early.

Getting to know your audience is by no means going to be a straightforward endeavor. This task does not, however, necessarily need to be a massive drain on your time, effort, and resources. There are plenty of effective routes that you can take in order to streamline your consumer studying process, seven of which include:

  1. Use an online census tool to unearth key pieces of information relating to specific demographics.
  2. Study your competitors and find out who they are targeting and how they are targeting them.
  3. Create a customer persona that matches your brand image and product range.
  4. Make the effort to spend time with your clients in a one-on-one capacity.
  5. Audit your online engagements and reader comments on a regular basis.
  6. Embrace the art of social listening in order to unearth the trends that are currently resonating with your target audience members.
  7. Conduct surveys both in-person and via the web (if you don’t enjoy a lot of initial engagement from this endeavor, consider incentivizing your audience members to take part).

Offer a valuable service

The top five most visited websites in the world all have a bounce rate lower than 35%, and this isn’t by luck or by chance. It’s because these sites all offer their target audience a valuable online experience. Google achieves this by generating thousands upon thousands of search results within seconds. Meanwhile, YouTube achieves this by making its video content accessible for all web users. In comparison, Facebook achieves this by allowing people to reconnect with friends and family members, Twitter achieves this by allowing its users to interact with one another in a streamlined and seamless fashion, and Instagram achieves this by consistently improving the immersive nature of its platform. All of these sites go above and beyond to be of some value to their target audience, and it’s highly recommended that you do the same.

Quite simply, if you’re to stand a chance at keeping your bounce rate down, you need to give your target market a legitimate reason to interact with your site. For advice on how to create more customer value via the web, be sure to check out this insightful article on the matter.

Produce compelling content

As well as offering a valuable online service, you must also ensure that your web-based content is engaging, immersive, and compelling. Once you start producing content that meets these specifications, your audience members will instantly feel more inclined to read through your written articles. This will keep them on your website for a much more sustained period of time, which in turn will help you to lower your bounce rate in the long run.

Improve your site’s UX

Your website’s user experience will have a profound effect on its bounce rate. Nobody is going to want to stick around on your platform if it’s slow to load, difficult to navigate, or strenuous to read, which is why you must actively attempt to improve your UX.

If you want to achieve this, then you must make use of white space, fill your site with compelling calls-to-action, and ensure that your website is mobile-friendly. However, don’t fill up your website for the sake of filling it up. You should provide key information in a concise, coherent, and clear fashion. It can help to segment your key information clearly with bullet points and engage your consumers with well-designed headlines. In addition, you should avoid using stock photography (this decreases trust and could make your site look generic) and instead use professional photographs that you have taken.

As a final few steps, make sure to:

  • Fix your 404 errors before your audience members encounter them.
  • Use visual cues to ensure that your hyperlinks are easily identifiable.
  • Retain a consistent tone across all of your web pages.

Refrain from annoying your visitors

Make no mistake about it; your visitors aren’t going to feel inclined to stick around on your web platform if you proceed to annoy them in any way, shape, or form. To avoid committing this crime, it’s recommended that you never expose your leads to pop-ups and autoplay. This will allow your visitors to retain control of their web-viewing habits, which in turn will increase the appreciation they have for you, your business, and your company website. Ultimately, this will be sure to have a profound positive effect on your ongoing bounce rate.

If you’re to generate leads in today’s competitive market, it’s advisable that you make an effort to lower your web page’s bounce rate. When you decide to reduce your bounce rate, be sure to heed the advice and guidance laid out above. Understand your audience, offer a valuable service, produce compelling content, and refrain from annoying your visitors at all costs — once you do all of that, you’ll be sure to take your company website to the next level in no time.