7 Powerful Ways to Reduce Your Bounce Rate

The bounce rate, the metric that all marketers should closely monitor in Google Analytics, shows you the number of visitors who left your website immediately after viewing the landing page. In other words, they did not click anywhere else on the website. These are “one-and-done” visits. They didn’t purchase anything, didn’t fill in a contact form and didn’t sign up for your newsletter. When your website’s goals aren’t met, the first thing you do is think about ways to reduce your bounce rate.

What Is a Good Bounce Rate?

Of course, there’s always room for improvement. But before making this your priority, you should take a look at the average numbers so you know if it’s really worth to strive to reduce your bounce rate:

• 25% to 40% is great. This means everything is working perfectly on your website and your conversion funnel is spot on.
• 41% to 55% is the average. If you’re here, it means there is still room for improvement, but it’s not yet time to make this a priority.
• 56% to 70% is above average. You may want to look on ways to reduce your bounce rate. However, this depends on the industry you’re in.
• Above 70% is a bounce rate that should definitely be looked into, irrespective of the industry you’re in and the purpose of your website.
• 90% and over is, well, terrible, especially if this is the norm, not the exception. Your website may be burdened by pop-ups or filled with bad content.

Even if your bounce rate is higher than average, there’s no reason to panic yet. It can be the result of poorly executed Facebook ads, so the key to reducing it is not in improving your landing page, but your ads themselves. If you’re running Google AdWords, you can also expect a significant increase in your bounce rate. However, this should go back to normal as soon as your campaign is over.

Let’s take a look at the ways to reduce your bounce rate:

1. Improve the Readability of Your Content

The first thing that drives visitors away from your website is poorly written content. This doesn’t just mean grammar mistakes and poor language skills, but also texts that are hard to read, with no subtitles and with thick paragraphs.

In order to reduce your bounce rate, improve your content’s readability and its quality:

• Use no more than 300 words after each headline.
• Leave plenty of space between paragraphs.
• Write short paragraphs. Aim for 2-3 sentences per paragraph and no more than 5.
• Use bullet points and numbered lists.
• Use different colors and bold fonts.
• Add at least one image per blog post.
• Use charts and infographics to boost credibility and readability at the same time.
• Create short sentences.

If you’re a WordPress user, the Yoast plugin is extremely helpful. It will not only show you how to improve readability, but also boost your SEO.

2. Reduce Your Bounce Rate with the Right Call-to-Action

You don’t need calls-to-action only on your landing page. Each part of your website should work towards the same goal: getting people to convert into paying customers. A CTA is imperative even in the shortest and simplest of blog posts. Yes, your blog is an informative tool first and foremost; but it can also be a powerful money-making machine if you use it right.

When you sit down to write a new blog post, think about how it aligns with your business goals. Are you just writing to improve your brand awareness? That’s great, but why not move forward? What action should people take after reading your post? For instance, after reading this one, I think many people might realize they need better content to reduce their bounce rate and contact us to do it. That’s why I have the appropriate CTA in place.

If you don’t guide people on their buyer journey, they are very likely to leave your website as soon as they got what they came for. Tell them what to do with a powerful CTA on every page! Offer a free trial (especially if you’re in the SaaS field), a free e-book, a newsletter subscription, or simply add links to your products if you’re in e-commerce. Create compelling CTAs so that users don’t leave your website and forget about it the next minute.

3. Focus on the Customer

There’s no bigger mistake in content writing than forgetting who you’re writing for. When you create the content for your website, you’re always tempted to write about the stuff you’re good at. “We’re the best”, “we provide excellent quality”, “our products are unique”. That’s all great, but how does this benefit the customer?

Switch to talking about them: “YOU get top quality”, “YOU work with the best, so YOU get great results”, “YOU get to use a product no one else has”. Even if you’re writing content for an e-shop, try to keep the focus on the advantages your product brings to the customers. Instead of speaking about features, explain how these translate into benefits.

Briefly put, this is all about time. People don’t have the time to think about what your content means for them. So make it easier for your readers to depict the benefits. This goes even for blogging. Make it about the readers by giving actionable examples (like the ones above) instead of intricate definitions and third person narration.

4. Get the Right Visitors in the First Place

When you’re writing or researching visitors, think long and hard about who you’re targeting. Attracting the right crowd is the best way to reduce your bounce rate. In other words, make sure you’re writing for people who are willing to buy, subscribe or contact you.

Let me give you an example of a mistake we made here at Idunn: we started writing blog posts about copywriting. You know, the usual tips, tricks and insights of the trade. We got a lot of organic traffic and, at first, we loved that. But then we noticed that our bounce rate was huge despite the fact that people spent an average of 2 minutes per page. What had happened? We got visits from copywriters looking for tips on how to improve their skills. And, while we love to help, this was not the audience we had in mind.

5. Check Your Page Load Times

Ever since Google shifted to a mobile-first index, page load times have becomes extremely important. Expect most of your visitors to be on mobile and optimize your pages accordingly. No one likes to wait for ages to see a webpage.

The ideal load time should be around 2 seconds. Idun.pro, for instance, takes 2.29 seconds to load. In order to achieve it, avoid using large photos and remove useless WordPress plugins. If you test your load speed and notice it’s too high, get in touch with your webmaster and figure out a way to solve it.

6. Set Outbound Links Correctly

If your website or blog post has outbound links, make sure they are set to open in a new tab. Otherwise, your readers will get distracted by the new website and forget about pushing going back to yours.

As always, usability is key. Make it easy for the reader to go back to your website or blog and this will drastically reduce your bounce rate.

7. Write Great Content

There is no better way to reduce your bounce rate than creating excellent content that keeps readers engaged and wanting for more. We’ve said it over and over again: it’s a client’s market and if your content is not what the client wants, they will leave your website (and your business).

Great content is not created to improve your vanity metrics. Even if you get plenty of organic traffic because your content is SEO-friendly, it doesn’t mean it will translate into sales. Your aim shouldn’t just be loads of traffic, but targeted traffic.

The best kind of content is the one created with your revenue in mind. Content that sells will also reduce your bounce rate. So, instead of creating tons of irrelevant content, create less, but well-targeted and optimized.

Need the type of content that sells and reduces your bounce rate? Get seasoned copywriters with marketing background working on it: