Are you familiar with your website’s bounce rate? If not, you could be missing out on countless opportunities to connect with your audience, increase website traffic, and grow your brand.
Your bounce rate is the percentage of people who click through to your website and then leave before navigating to a new page. They “bounce” back to the search results to find a better answer or product. As a business owner or marketer, your goal is to make sure that users have a top-notch experience on your site and want to continue engaging with your brand.
Generally speaking, a bounce rate between 30% and 50% is excellent, while 50% to 70% is considered average. Rates below 25% are usually caused by an error. With that in mind, you can see how many users are bouncing from your site by reviewing your Google Analytics account.
Today, I will go over several tips you can use to keep visitors on your site and reduce your bounce rate.
Ready? Let’s dive in!
Optimize Your Content with User Intent in Mind
First, let’s talk about the content on your website. Blogs and product landing pages are two of the most common places to lose potential customers. But if you keep the intent of your target audience in mind, it’s possible to significantly reduce your bounce rate.
Believe it or not, 77% of people read blog posts. Many people go to company blogs to find answers to their questions. Similarly, people turn to blogs when they want to be entertained, learn about a topic, or catch up on industry news. You may also be shocked to learn that 47% of shoppers read 3-5 blog posts from a brand before making a purchase on their site.
So, if visitors are bouncing from your blog or landing page, there’s a slim chance that they will come back and become customers. It’s in your best interest to get users to read several posts, so they can get comfortable with your brand. At the very least, these interactions could lead to visitors subscribing to your email list.
The best way to optimize your content is to create buyer personas for your audience segments. Once you understand visitors’ goals and pain points, you can create posts that match their intent. If you can catch their interest early, there’s an excellent chance they will continue browsing your site.
Stick with One Call-to-Action
A call-to-action (CTA) should give your visitors directions on what you would like them to do next. If someone is on your product landing page, your goal is likely to get them to buy your product or service. You don’t want to overwhelm your audience with multiple pop-ups, offers, and lead magnets all at once. You’ve got to focus on what you want each page to achieve and create a relevant call-to-action.
For example, if a user is reading one of your long-form blog posts about a broad topic, you may want to consider including a simple signup form so they can join your email list. On the other hand, if a visitor is reading a blog post about a specific feature included with your product or service, you may want to create a CTA that comes with an exclusive discount for new customers. People that land on these types of posts are close to making a purchase.
Imagine how you would feel if you landed on a website for the first time and got bombarded with a banner promoting a flash sale, a lead magnet offer for an ebook, and two pop-ups asking you to join a push notification and email list. You would likely, and rightfully, leave.
Instead of putting your audience in this situation and increasing your bounce rate, pick one CTA and test it. Split tests allow you to try multiple CTAs without being invasive and annoying to your customers. Research shows that running split tests on your CTAs can boost your conversion rate by a whopping 300%!
Show that You’re Trustworthy
Another reason you may have a high bounce rate is users aren’t sure if your company is trustworthy. This is a huge problem for new businesses that haven’t built their brand presence or secured many sales.
As soon as you start seeing sales, start asking users to leave reviews. You can even include a review section at the bottom of each product page. This one tip can lead to more people sticking around and eventually becoming customers.
A big reason for this trend comes down to one statistic; 72% of people refuse to take action on a website until they read reviews. So, if you don’t have them available on your site, users will likely bounce and try to find reviews somewhere else. At this point, there’s already a small chance they will come back to complete their order.
When your audience sees that other people have spent money on your product and enjoyed their purchase, they are more likely to place an order. User-generated content is a powerful marketing tool. I suggest including your brand’s best reviews on your standalone landing pages for even more conversions.
If you want to bring down your bounce rate, show visitors that you are genuinely interested in helping them succeed. You can reflect these values through your content and by showing what existing customers think of your brand.
Final Thoughts
Keep an eye on your bounce rate if you want to boost engagement, sales, and traffic to your site. The most important thing to remember is you will not see a drastic change overnight. Like other growth strategies, improving your bounce rate requires attention to details, time, and testing. If you consistently practice the tips offered above and optimize your site for users across all devices, you will see fewer people bouncing from your website.
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