When people click a link to your website, you want them to stick around. You want them to read your content, see your offers, and ultimately take the next step to respond to your calls to action. But, many people bounce off the site.
Bouncing means they visited but left quickly. You can see your bounce rate in Google Analytics. So how can you reduce your bounce rates?
Increase Speed
When you can increase the loading speed of your website, you will automatically have fewer bouncing visitors. People are impatient and don’t like to wait for something to load.
Don’t burn people’s retinas
Certain colors, like blue and gold, don’t translate well to online reading. Also, you need to space your paragraphs differently than you would for printing. It’s okay to break the text into more paragraphs for online reading.
Improve your SEO
Search engine optimization is important for your website. If you’re getting a lot of bounces, you may be using the wrong type of content to attract your ideal audience. Or, even worse, your content is boring. Improve content and SEO, and you will have fewer bounces.
Study your target audience Better
Another factor in bounce rates is a lack of understanding of your target audience. If your ads, blog posts, and content marketing (and any other type of marketing) aren’t targeting your audience well, then you need to improve your targeting.
Create natural navigation
The best navigation is not very noticeable but naturally takes your visitors where they want to go. Don’t be clever with the names of the links and buttons. Instead, be direct about where the link will send your visitor and use less navigation on the home page. Having fewer options will avoid confusion.
Know the reason for your website
If you don’t know the purpose of your website, no one else will either. Make sure you have laid out the website before you build it so that you know and your visitors know that the website is clear about your message.
Bounced traffic has a variety of causes that you should investigate. You can use Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools to help you discover ways to reduce your bounce rate. But, one of the most important things is to make sure that your website speaks to your target audience in order to attract the right people in the first place.