6 ways to reduce your websites bounce rate.

Just to clarify, bounce rate is the percentage of users that come to your website and then leave without clicking on anything. There are many reasons for this, some of which are annoying popups obscuring the content the user has come to read, slow page load times, users inability to find the main call to action, or simply they couldn’t find what they were looking for.

Here are just a few ways to decrease your bounce rate. If you can concur these you will be sure to increase your conversion rate!

Landing pages

Use landing pages when running a campaign. If you are running a campaign for a specific product of feature make sure your visitors land on a page that is optimised for this campaign. Use the same imagery, language, wording that you have in the marketing ads, emails and posts. If you are advertising a low homeloan rate then don’t take users through to the home page where you are featuring your financial planning services, you are sure to lose customers.

Pop-Ups are a No-No

No one likes popups, so don’t use them. If your client insists then remember that patience is a virtue, don’t activate the pop ups as soon as the user enters the page, wait for the user to read part of the content they have come to your site for. Also make it easy for users to close the pop up, a large clear X in the top right corner is a must have. Alternatively, if this content is so important that they feel the need shove it in customers face then why not make it an in page feature?

Optimise your call-to-action buttons.

First of all your call-to-action button should be easy to find and enticing to click on. Make sure you place your CTA’s strategically and logically above the fold. Don’t use language such as “free trial” the main purpose of your call-to-action button is to get your users to do something, so use actionable language such as “start your free trial” or “Test it out for free”. Make sure you test this language out using something like A/B testing (split testing), you can then see what your visitors respond to best.

Fast fast fast

With our increasingly busy lives, people are becoming more impatient, so make your site load fast. How can I do this you may ask? Here are a couple of ways; reducing images sizes (since we are designing more responsive sites these days don’t go too crazy on this one, you don't want your images to look terrible when the user expands their browser window. You can overcome this by adding a max width in the CSS. Alternatively you might be better off using the quality over quantity rule - decrease the amount of images used in the site and make the ones you have great), cache any heavy information, clean up your CCS, and make sure your server speeds are optimised.

Use responsive design.

These days more and more people are using their mobile phones to access information and buy products online, so make sure your website and navigation are optimised for all browsers and screen sizes.

Show users what they are looking for

This is simple and logical right? Wrong, the is the main reason websites have a high bounce rate. Ask your users or check your analytics and see what your users are looking for, then optimise your landing pages and homepage with these search terms.

These tips are sure winners for reducing bounce rates on your website. Remember to test any changes you make and keep record of the results. You and your client alike will like to see how these changes improved their conversion rates, increased time spent on page, increased their brand recognition, and increased their online sales.