How to Reduce Bounce Rate and Boost Website Traffic: A Step-by-Step Guide

Bounce rate is an important SEO factor that you should focus on to improve your search engine rankings.

But, what exactly is bounce rate, and why does it matter in SEO?

Well, that’s what I’ll cover in this article. I’ll also share with you some proven techniques to reduce the bounce rate of your website. So, grab a cup of tea and start reading!

Why is bounce rate important?

Bounce rate is an important metric to track because it can indicate that your website is not engaging visitors or that they are not finding the information they are looking for. A high bounce rate can lead to lost sales and leads, so it is important to take steps to reduce it.

How to reduce bounce rate on a website

Here are some tips on how to reduce bounce rate on your website:

• Ensure your landing pages are relevant to the search queries that are driving traffic to them.
• Make your website load quickly.
• Create high-quality content that is informative, engaging, and easy to read.
• Use clear calls to action to tell visitors what you want them to do next.
• Improve your website’s navigation to make it easy for visitors to find the information they are looking for.
• Use internal linking to encourage visitors to explore other pages on your website.
• Avoid pop-ups and other intrusive advertising formats.

What increases bounce rate on a website?

Some of the factors that can increase bounce rate on a website include:

• Irrelevant landing pages
• Slow loading times
• Poor quality content
• Lack of clear calls to action
• Poor navigation
• Pop-ups and other intrusive advertising formats

What is bounce rate in Google Analytics and how to reduce it?

Bounce rate is a metric in Google Analytics that measures the percentage of single-page sessions. A single-page session is a session in which a user visits only a single page on your website and then leaves.

To reduce bounce rate in Google Analytics, you can use the following tips:

• Identify your high-bounce pages.
• Improve the content on your high-bounce pages.
• Add clear calls to action to your high-bounce pages.
• Make it easy for visitors to navigate your website.
• Segment your audience and analyze bounce rate by different segments.

By following these tips, you can reduce bounce rate on your website and improve your overall user experience.

What is the bounce rate?

According to Google, “bounce rate is the percentage of all sessions on your site in which users viewed only a single page and triggered only a single request to the Analytics server.”

Let me simplify this:

Suppose a user searches for a term in Google and comes to your website by clicking on the search result. If the user immediately hits the back button or exits the tab, they will have visited only one page in that session and not visited any other page of your website.

If the user didn’t even scroll down the page or interact with the page, Google Analytics will not be able to determine the session duration for that user visit and will count it towards the bounce rate. So, if out of 100 users, 60 users leave your page without visiting any other page, the bounce rate will be 60%.

Is a high bounce rate a bad thing?

Well, it depends.

It depends on what type of pages you are calculating the bounce rate for. Suppose a user visited your homepage and hit the back button without visiting other pages like blogs, services, or other pages. In that case, a high bounce rate is not good. It sends a negative signal to search engines about the page.

I recommend you check the bounce rate of each individual traffic source/medium. Most likely, the bounce rate is high for direct and social media traffic and it is low for organic traffic.

The lower the bounce rate percentage, the better it is for SEO.

If a particular channel has a high bounce rate, then you need to look at your marketing efforts for that channel. If this problem is site-wide, then you need to work on your website UI/UX design, typography, color, call to action, etc.

Why your bounce rate is so high & its solutions?

1. Easy navigation

Site navigation is an important factor that affects bounce rate. Make sure your site navigation is clear and easy to use, so that users can easily find the information they’re looking for with minimal clicks.

I recommend adding important links to the header and footer sections of your website, using an HTML sitemap, and creating a silo structure for better visibility of important page elements. You can also enable breadcrumbs on your website to help both search engines and users understand the site structure and improve navigation and user experience.

2. Slow Loading of the webpage

A Google analysis of 11 million landing pages found that slow loading speed directly correlated with higher bounce rates.

Loading speed is the biggest and most important factor for bounce rate. If your website takes too long to load, most users will leave your website and prefer to read any other similar website. So, the load time of that first page is extremely important.

Did you Know?

• One in 4 visitors will leave a website that takes longer than 4 seconds to load
• 1 second delay reduces customer satisfaction by 16%
• 46% of users don’t like to visit poorly performing websites again
• 64% of shoppers who are dissatisfied with their site visit will shop elsewhere next time.

Every second matters in page load time, and it affects bounce rate. So, it is important to optimize your website for both mobile and desktop devices.

In fact, page speed (Core Web Vitals) is now an official ranking factor in Google.

3. Too Many Intrusive Ads

Most websites now use AdSense and other similar networks to monetize their content. However, some websites put too many ads on a single page in an attempt to get more clicks and impressions, which can hurt their website’s SEO, including bounce rate.

If users see too many ads instead of the actual content, they are less likely to return to the website.

4. Thin and Unhelpful Content 

Content is king, and this applies fully to website SEO. If you promise something in your title and thumbnails but don’t deliver the answer in your content, users will not stay longer on your website. The chances of getting more than one page per session are almost negligible. As a result, your bounce rate for that page will be high.

Always try to improve your content and cover all aspects of that topic on your page so that users don’t have to search for the answer or solution to their problems on any other page. You can include custom high-quality images and infographics, bullet points, charts, tables, and other elements to hook users for a longer time on your website.

5. Internal Linking

Internal linking is a great way to keep users on your website for longer. In fact, large websites like Wikipedia use internal linking strategies to boost their SEO rankings.

You can link to other similar content on your blog within your new content. This way, users can easily visit another webpage through that internal link. It helps your website distribute link juice to all pages and ultimately helps with ranking.

If you’re using WordPress, you can use plugins like LinkWhisper to suggest internal links for you.

6. External site opens in a new Tab

You can also maintain your bounce rate by opening external links in a new tab. This will open a new tab instead of opening the external site in the same tab, allowing users to easily return to your website and increasing page views.

If you are using RankMath on your WordPress website, you can automate this process by enabling a simple setting:

• Go to RankMath > General settings > Links.
• Enable the toggle for Open External Links in New Tab/Window.
• Click Save to save your changes.
• After that, all external links will open in a new tab.

7. Related posts

You can add a related posts section at the end of your blog posts to reduce your bounce rate. This section allows users to easily jump to related content on your website.

You can show related posts in a bullet format, with titles and thumbnails, or in a combination of these formats. Most Blogger and WordPress themes come with related post functionality, but you can also use WordPress plugins to add more features and customization options.

These plugins allow you to customize the appearance and behavior of your related posts section, such as the number of posts to display, the types of posts to include, and the layout of the section.

Adding a related posts section to your blog is a great way to keep users engaged and reduce your bounce rate. It’s also a good way to promote your other content and encourage users to explore your website further.

8. Search box

You can also include a search button in the header or sidebar of your website to allow users to easily search for different content within your website.

This is one of the basic settings that most site owners ignore, but it can help reduce the bounce rate of a website.

9. Check the readability of your text

Now that users have so many options to choose from, if your content is not easy to read and understand, they will leave your website, no matter how well it answers their questions.

You can reduce your bounce rate by using a larger and easier-to-read font on your website. You should also avoid writing long paragraphs and instead break them up into multiple short and easy-to-read paragraphs. You can also add headings, bullet points, images, and graphs in between paragraphs to make your content more interesting and engaging.

10. Engage your audience with videos

Videos are another way to keep users on a webpage longer. Most users prefer to watch videos instead of reading long blog posts.

So, you should include at least one or two videos in your blog post to keep users engaged. This will help you improve dwell time and keep your bounce rate low.

Frequently Asked Question

Conclusion

Analyzing and improving your bounce rate can be intimidating, but it’s important for improving your user experience, conversions, search rankings, and organic traffic.

I recommend following the techniques discussed in this article to reduce your bounce rate. Remember, there’s no magic number to aim for. Instead, focus on continuously improving your user experience and reducing your bounce rate over time.

What tools and tricks do you use to monitor and improve your bounce rate?