Technical actions to reduce the bounce rate of your website

The bounce rate is one of the quality metrics which needs constant monitoring. We try to understand users’ behavior through it and find out solutions in order to decrease it. But is high bounce rate always a bad thing? What should we check in order to give the best user experience to our visitors?

1. Website speed

If you really care about your visitors then you have to provide them with a fast loading website. And when we say that it needs to load fast, we mean in no more than 3 seconds. After that time, you begin to lose your visitors which are translated into lost leads & transactions.

So, you don’t only need to keep your visitors happy but also the leading search engine, Google which has forged its ranking factors around website speed too. Check the speed of your website by submitting it to Page Speed Insights.

2. Lazy load technique

Does your website need to load a lot of content? Why should you load it if the user hasn’t scrolled down to the rest of your content yet? Lazy Load designing technique acts as a smart listener where every time you ask (scroll-down) to read more then and only then content is being loaded. This way both your website loads fast and you can manage to provide a fast pacing page with a lot of content.

3. Poor design

As in real life, here the rule is the same: First impression matters. So believe it or not, your visitors will judge you, your professionalism, your authority and the security of your website according to your design. A modern and clear design with easy navigation through its menu and strong/solid user experience certainly impacts the above judgments positively and could convert your visitors from guests to leads and/or customers. There are a lot of attractive, beautifully designed websites out there that will help inspire your own website design: Future Forward, FeedMusic.com, Melaleuca.com, and Virgin America are all examples of fantastic, clean website designs.

4. Helpful 404 page

Nobody likes broken links, but there are moments that something might have gone wrong. In many cases, technical problems are also appearing that we aren’t even aware of.

So for all the above reasons, you should consider having an informative and helpful 404 not found page. Try having:

  • A search box where the user can easily retry to find what he was looking for
    Links to major sections in your website, like the homepage, your blog & your contact page.
    Internal links to your best performing content like your offers page, your top selling categories and your best performing blog posts.

5. Make your website mobile-friendly

The days when users were only surfing the web from their desktop have passed. Mobile share is currently counting more than 30% of all global web pages served.

So, having a mobile friendly website (either it is through a responsive design or a specific mobile version) is more than crucial for the user’s experience.