Bounce rate describes customers who visit your landing page and then bounce away before you convert them. You do not want to have a high bounce rate.
If you are noticing a high bounce rate, you need a serious redesign. Your content marketing strategy is not working. The end goal is to get your customers to convert. The only way to get them to convert is to get them to stick around on your page.
Whether you are building a website from scratch, using a content management system, or using a website builder, you need to understand the correlation between bounce rate and conversion architecture.
This will help you create an effective content strategy that will lead to business growth.
But before you dive into content creation, you need to make sure your website is fully functional. That means that everything from choosing a secure web hosting solution to building a visually appealing website must be taken care of. But not all web hosting providers offer the same performance levels. One of the most important factors to check when choosing a web hosting company is their uptime score.
Uptime is the amount of time your website is live. Every second your website is down you’re losing potential customers and visitors. Some research showed that 88 percent of online consumers won’t return to a website after a bad experience. Your website not having a decent uptime score isn’t a promising sign. A decent amount of the uptime score is at least 99%, but some top-tier hosting providers can guarantee a 99.99% uptime score which significantly improves your website’s performance. Once you’ve taken care of a technical side, it’s time for the visual side of your website to be taken care of – but don’t forget to keep the functionality in mind.
What Is the Bounce Rate?
Google analytics defines bounce rate as the number of individuals who visit a single page and then leave your site from the entrance page. A person visits your landing page but is not interested enough in your site to look around, so they bounce away.
Google monitors your bounce rate. This is one factor it uses when determining how your site gets ranked.
There are several reasons you might have a high bounce rate. One reason is that you are not attracting the right customers. For example, if you have an online butcher shop that gets a lot of visits every single month but most visits are from vegetarians or vegans, you are not attracting the right people.
Conversely, your butcher shop could attract people who are interested in buying meat, but your landing page may not be well organized or enticing. Your call to action may be hidden or not clear enough for people to understand what you want them to do. These are serious flaws in your website design. The following are three things that you can do to reduce your bounce rate and improve conversions.
1. Make Your Content Easier to Read
One reason people navigate away from websites is because they are difficult to read. You have likely landed on a website and the text was so illegible that you didn’t take the time to do any more investigating on the site. You just navigated away.
Large chunks of text are difficult to read. They are hard on the eyes. When a person sees a sizable chunk of text, they get scared because they don’t want to dedicate that much time to reading. It doesn’t matter how well thought out the information you are offering is. If you format it in a lousy way, your bounce rate increases.
– 1. Break up posts into small paragraphs. You want the posts, the landing page, or paragraphs to read like people speak.
– 2. Most people do not want to read a website. They want to scan it first. Subheadings and bullet points make it easier to scan an article. After scanning the article, they may go back to read it if they find it interesting.
– 3. People love charts and images. Screenshots, quotes, and images make the reading more enjoyable.
– 4. It is okay to bold keywords a few times. Don’t do it too much.
– 5. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. These get readers involved as opposed to just having them read.
Finalize your content with a subheading entitled conclusion. This lets the reader know that if they jump to the concluding paragraph, they will know what action to take. The conclusion should be actionable.
2. Motivate with a Good Call to Action
You have written an intriguing and easy-to-read copy. Now, you need to encourage your readers to continue exploring your site. This requires a strong call to action.
If your call to action is weak, people are going to be running for the door. Every person who visits your site should at least be thinking about purchasing something from you.
Even if your call to action does not lead to a conversion, it should cause your readers to click to see what is on the next page. A compelling call to action does not happen accidentally. It has to be well-crafted with the thoughts of your readers in mind.
For example, a good call to action might encourage them to click on a resource page where they can learn more about the product or service you offer. This minimizes your bounce rate. If you really want to lure in customers, offer a free trial or provide education about something. This is a great way to keep them coming back and eventually become customers.
Your call to action should not be pushy, but it should show urgency. It should encourage your readers to want to do something and do it now.
For example, when the pandemic took over the world most companies had to change the way they operate. It hit small businesses a bit harder than some larger organizations. In order to survive, they needed to adapt to the new way of doing business, and that meant integrating some cloud-based tools such as cloud accounting to keep their finances well organized. The ones that adapted rather quickly had better chances of surviving the pandemic. That was the opportunity for the companies that offer cloud-based services to profit because the tools they offer are very much needed at the moment – and that’s how the urgency factor works.
3. Keep Your Blog Current with New Content
If you update your blog with fresh content regularly, you are going to have more leads. However, just throwing up content is not enough. The content has to be right for your audience. The content should separate you from the competition.
You can write compelling content that stirs emotion. But if your content does not solve the problem your readers have, it’s of little value. You want your content to motivate your readers and give them tips on things that they can do to produce actionable results.
Every piece of quality content you put up establishes you as an authority in your field. Little by little, readers look forward to the content that you produce. This builds momentum.
Most people are pretty web savvy. Even if they do not know the techniques, they can feel when they are being manipulated. The content you write needs to be genuine. Genuine content will excite your readers. They will share your content with others, creating a positive cycle.
Conclusion
Your site’s bounce rate is a good metric for determining if your visitors are interested in what you are offering. A high bounce rate shows that either you are attracting the wrong customers or the content you are creating is not right for them.
By making your site readable, creating a convincing call to action, and creating new content, you can minimize your bounce rate and improve your conversion rate. This will lead to increased revenue.