Bounce Rate is a percentage that shows the number of visitors that leave a site directly from the page they entered, without viewing other pages of the website. A high bounce rate means low visitor involvement and poor conversion rates.
Reasons for a high bounce rate may vary, but they include:
- Site is attracting the wrong audience
- Site is not user-friendly and/or has poor navigation
- Long page load time
- Irrelevant PPC ads
Regardless of the reason for the high bounce rate, it all translates into lost opportunity and wasted resources. High importance should be given to resolving a high page bounce rate. Here are eight tips:
1. Use Appealing Web Design
The design of your website is one of the most important factors. Try using eye friendly colors, avoid animations that pop up in the middle of the page and anything that could distract or make the visitor feel uncomfortable. Organized content without information overflow in one page can deliver your message to the visitors effectively. Avoid using template sites and have the layout designed by a professional. Make sure that the HTML of your website is valid in order to have the same result in all the browsers.
2. Minimize Page Data Size
Make sure you have optimized the size of your images, keep the text/html code ratio low and try your best to keep the loading time as low as possible as it affects the user’s experience.
3. Build User-Friendly Menus and Navigation
The hyperlinks are the power of the web. Your site needs to have a user friendly menu that will allow the visitor to find what he wants easily. Avoid placing the menu on the bottom, try to organize the pages into categories and do not bury the important pages more than 3 clicks away from the homepage. Suggesting relevant products or services and placing links in strategic place in the text is something worth doing. Try using text links that contain keywords and avoid flash menus.
4. Create Well -Written Content
Check that the title, the headers and the metatags of each page are relevant with the context. Have an abstract in the first paragraph or try to answer all the visitor’s questions in the first lines of your page. Triple check for any grammar or spelling errors. Ensure that all content is clear and easy to read.
5. Optimize for the Correct Keywords
Always optimize the pages for relevant keywords; each page should target to 1 or 2 terms. Make sure they have a good keyword density and that they appear in the important parts of the document such as the titles and headers. Do not try to trick the users and Google by including unrelated or too generic keywords. Even if you manage to rank first, the users will leave right away and you will increase the Bounce Rate
6. Get Quality Links
Try to get some good links pointing to your page. Make sure they contain the correct anchor text. You can lure other webmasters to link to your pages by placing good content in your pages (interesting texts, a free service, start a clever marketing campaign etc). Try to avoid link exchange as a bad “neighborhood” for the reciprocal link may be damaging.
7. Start a PPC Campaign on the Most Important Keywords
Consider starting a Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaign on the important keywords of your site. Make sure you will pay a reasonable price per click and select the ones that are relevant to you content. Pay attention to the bidding management of your PPC campaign. Bid for the right keywords in order to avoid wrong traffic.
8. Study the Reports
As a webmaster, when you evaluate how successful the online marketing campaign was, you should not only take into account the amount of traffic, the PageRank or the page views of your site but also focus on the Bounce Rate, the Average Time on Site, the Pages/Visit and the Conversion Rates. Use a web analytics tool such as HitsLink, define your goals, study the reports, categorize your visitors based on their behavior and redesign your SEO plan when needed.
Keep in mind that user must find what he searches for. You have about 8 seconds to capture his attention on average before he will leave in search of a better resource. Be sure that you are making the best of the short time you have.
Awesome !! I completely agree with you and have applied these techniques myself on some of my blogs. And you know what? it worked ! to a larger extent !!
Thanks for the valuable sharing …!