You have visitors walk into a clothing store, look around for anywhere from 5-60 seconds then turn around and walk out. Imagine if a majority of walk in traffic were to do that and the store owner does nothing to persuade these people. Exactly, he would probably would not be in business for very long. Instead the store owner sets up discount racks on each side of the aisles as soon as the visitor walks in, hangs signs from the ceiling of buy one get the 2nd for half price etc. and on each rack he puts the sizes of the cloths on a large sign to read from almost anywhere in the store. That store owner has just increased his chances of not only keeping that visitor in the store longer, but possibly converting it into a sale.
What Exactly is a Bounce Rate?
The bounce rate for your website is nothing more a visitor leaving your site from the same page they entered on. They do not click on any other links within your site, they just turn around and leave. Higher bounce rates tend to lead to lower conversions because people are not doing anything once they visit your site, they simply turn around and leave.
How Can I Lower My Bounce Rate?
- Call To Action – For a site selling something or wanting to convert from a free giveaway, this is a must have. Your call to action instructs the viewer on what to do next, either “click here to purchase” or “click here for more information”, whatever. Make sure your call to action is either at the top of the site or above the fold (above where the visitor will not have to scroll down to see it). Testing out different colors of that image will help improve your conversion rate as well, but that is another story.
- Overall Design Look – This is where having a clean, sleek and professional look will help you win over a visitor. They say never judge a book by it’s cover, but with the internet people tend to judge a website based on the look and that can determine if they are staying or leaving. Try to avoid using bright colors throughout your design layout, do not use to much animation as it can make the site look “busy” and deter your visitor.
- Structured Content – Structure your content in a way that will not be confusing to the visitor. Make it easy to scan by using paragraphs with headings, lists if you need to (like this post), images to show visualization to the viewer and avoid what I like to call a “wall of text”. If you have sidebar’s, do not have the information cluttered and bunched together. A cluttered page is like a co-workers desk, you would dread sitting down at that desk and attempt to get any work done.
- Easy Navigation – Make your navigation menu easy not only for the visitor to see, but use as well. Have them get to a page within one or two clicks. Do not send them on a scavenger hunt looking for the information they are after. Do not make your navigation menu to small or placed at the bottom of the site. If you have sub categories for certain pages, a CSS drop down menu is the best route to take. After all, you do want that visitor to visit other pages of your site, so make it as easy as possible for them.
- Headlines That Stand Out – Write your headline so it stands out to the viewer, making the front size larger then the rest of the content and either use a different color or bold it out. Now that you have a headline that looks different then the rest of your site, write one that will make the viewer want to read what is below it. Does that headline reach through their monitor and make them want to read what you said, I sure hope so or they will be leaving.
- Well Written Content – Now you know how important the structure of your content is, now you need to make the content really worth reading. Does it offer good information, is it helpful and relevant to the page title you gave it, did you just copy it from an article you found? If the content is long, make sure you put the important information higher up.
- Avoid Auto Playing – This one you will want to test with depending on the type of site you are running before deciding to just axe the auto play feature. Some visitors hate audio or video that automatically starts up as soon as they come to your website. If you have this in place, you might want to stop it for a little while and see how the results are. Make sure to implement the other tips within this post though as well.
- Avoid Pop Ups/Slide Overs – These can be big turn offs for your visitors and potential customers, why piss them off as soon as they get to your site? You can have a call to action be on the page or within the content, but not as soon as they hit the site.
- Site Loading Times – How fast does your website load for the visitor? If it is to long, chances are they are leaving and going elsewhere to find what they are looking for. Avoid using a lot of javascript, heavy flash animation or to many plugins for your wordpress blog as these all cause slower loading times. Clean up your site code and reduce your image size where possible. Anything you can cut back on to speed up your sites loading time is nothing but a plus.
- Test Test and Test Again – Either for a landing page or a full blown website, you need to be testing and tweaking to see what works best in lower your bounce rate. If you do not have the time to test, find someone who can do it for you, it will pay off in the long run. Never assume one time changes are the best, make changes and test again to find out what is ideal for your website.
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