Websites and blogs can be the right way for you to connect with customers, potential customers, and visitors. However, this does not mean that it is without challenges because bounce rate is still a problem faced by many website owners.
Haven't heard of the term bounce rate before? If you run Search Engine Optimization or SEO techniques, you should know these terms. In fact, you have to understand what a bounce rate is and what effect it has on your website and blog. To be able to better understand the bounce rate, you can listen to this one article which will also help provide a way to lower it.
What Is Bounce Rate?
Not all visitors are interested in browsing all the pages on your website, right? If they end up on the first page they've just visited, how can you turn them into potential customers?
This is where you have to understand what a bounce rate is and why website visitors simply leave the page they are visiting. Bounce rate is a percentage that comes from the data of visitors who immediately leave the website or blog after opening one page.
A feature of Google Analytics, bounce rate allows you to analyze and find out whether visitors feel at home spending a long time on your website pages.
The smaller the percentage number displayed, the better your website page will be. There are so many things that affect the high bounce rate, such as poor user experience, poor quality content, and so on. Before checking the bounce rate, you can first make sure whether you already have a user-friendly website or not.
How to Check Bounce Rate?
If you want to know the bounce rate of your website or blog, you can use Google Analytics. However, make sure this Google tool is installed on your website. Next, perform the following steps.
- First, open Google Analytics.
- Then, you can directly click Behaviour > Overview, in the menu you will get the average website page.
- Open the Full Report menu if you want to get a per-page bounce rate report.
How to Calculate Bounce Rate
Basically, the function of the bounce rate is to make it easier for website or blog owners to know the quality of each of their web pages. Although it has been calculated automatically by Google Analytics.
The higher the bounce rate of a website or blog, the worse the quality of the website's content is judged by search engines. Here's how the bounce rate percentage increases and how search engines see it.
- 80% and above means very bad
- 70% – 80% means bad
- 50% – 70% means average
- 30% – 50% means good
- 20% and below means the website is perfect for visitors
How to Lower the Bounce Rate of Websites and Blogs
After doing the calculations and you feel unsatisfied with the quality of the website because the bounce rate is considered quite high, now you can find the right way to reduce the bounce rate. This is not impossible because it can be tried and then you can compare the results before and after. Here are some ways worth trying to lower the bounce rate.
Improve Website or Blog Design
One of the reasons why many visitors leave the website so quickly that it doesn't even take 10 seconds of visit is the appearance of the website itself. Most people nowadays prefer weighty and quality websites.
Therefore, you should make sure that your website is not only attractive, but also unique and professional. Visitors will feel at home lingering on a website or blog that has a decent empty space and attractive design patterns. If these two things are still not on your website, improve the design right now.
Increase Website Loading Speed
In addition to design, you also have to pay attention to website loading speed. If the bounce rate is still high, you should immediately check and test the loading time of your website using GTMetrix.
Visitors don't like to waste time just waiting for the website that is loading. Even though the website content is so good, it will not affect visitors if they cannot access the website quickly. A slow website can increase the possibility of a higher bounce rate. You can start optimizing website loading from now on.
Slow websites will also rank lower in Google search results or what is known as SERPs. Maybe there are still many who don't know that website speed is very influential on on-page SEO optimization that is run.
Show Responsive Pages
A website that is not responsive to mobile devices can certainly increase the overall bounce rate of the website. Nowadays, more and more people are using smartphones to access websites when they want to find what they need. That is why you must pay attention to the responsibility of a website or blog. It can also affect the user experience of the website.
Improve Content Quality
Another thing that affects the bounce ratio of the website is the quality of the website or blog content. If the website speed is optimal, now is the time for you to check the content and quality of the existing content through the right content marketing.
The content created should be easy to read so that visitors will spend their time reading the content to the end. In addition, website content must also be interesting because there are thousands of content on the internet that is indexed by search engines through web crawlers.
To make your content more interesting and easier to read, here are some tips that you can try.
- Use short sentences because internet users are used to speed reading and prefer short paragraphs.
- Make use of subheadings that will help readers find the key points of the article.
- Use bullets or numbering to explain the benefits or points to note.
- Bold some keywords but don't overdo it.
- Use attractive visuals in the form of illustrative images, photos, infographics, or videos.
- Ask a few questions in the content to invite reader participation rather than just reading the entire content.
- End the content with a subheading in the form of a conclusion.
Make the Storyline Interesting
Although the content has been arranged neatly, but the storyline should not be messy. Make sure the storyline is arranged in an interesting way. There is so much content that you have to make outstanding among other content.
If readers feel connected to the article they are reading, it means that the storyline you are using is good. This will make them read a story or even their own experience. Use pronouns that match the reader's language style.
Use Popups Appropriately
Popups can indeed help you get leads through blog subscribers or newsletters. However, popups are also not very liked by website visitors. If you want to use popups, just use them appropriately so as not to disturb visitors.
If visitors continue to be poked with popups, it is not impossible that they will be lazy to read the content on the website or blog so they decide to leave the page they are visiting.
Choose a Relevant Topic
Is your website getting high traffic? try to double-check where the traffic comes from whether it is from relevant keywords or not. The use of keywords that are not related to the products or services offered on the website has the potential to increase the bounce rate.
To avoid this, do keyword research with high search volume. In addition, you also have to pay attention to whether the keyword is relevant to your product or not.
Set Link to Open in New Tab
Usually, there are links in a content, both internal links and external links in the form of backlinks. Backlinks are links from one website that will direct visitors to another website.
Platforms like WordPress set the reader to open a link or links in the same tab as the currently opened page. Unfortunately, it can ruin the reader's experience. Why is that? They have to press the back button to return to the previous page. Imagine if they opened many links at once while reading an article. This means that they have to repeatedly press the back or back button to return to the start page.
This not only tires readers but can also harm blog owners. The high exit rate makes the bounce rate also go up. Therefore, you must direct readers or visitors to a new tab when they click on the link in the anchor text in the article. That way, they can read the article from the link without having to leave the page that was previously read.
Design Call to Action (CTA) Buttons Well
After attracting visitors with headlines and interesting content, don't let you lose them just because of an unattractive Call to Action (CTA). If this happens, it is not impossible that the exit rate will be high.
So, make sure that the CTA you're using is well-designed with attention to the various elements of the CTA itself. The text on the CTA button can lead the customer to click the button until they are on the page you are on. This will also reduce the bounce rate on the website or blog you manage.
Use Easy Navigation
To make your content easier to find, the website must have easy navigation. Visitors will enter the website page using navigation to find the content or information needed. Complicated navigation can make it difficult for visitors so that they will die your website. Give preference to the structure of the menu as well as use the drop-down menu items on the website.
Conclusion
By knowing the bounce rate, you can find out how many visitors leave the website even if they have only visited one page at the beginning of their search. You can also find out the quality of website pages. So you can determine whether you should improve the quality of the page or not.
A high bounce rate will also make you lose the opportunity to get potential buyers or potential customers, right?
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