Why you want a low bounce rate

Many small businesses suffer from high bounce rates for their websites –  the percentage of visitors who only go to one page, do not interact with it and then leave your site. While for certain pages, like contact us pages, this may not be a problem, for many, a high bounce rate indicates that there may be something wrong with your page or website in general.

Causes of high bounce rates

There are many potential causes of high bounce rates, including (but certainly not limited to):

• poor content – either because it is badly written or not what they were expecting to find
• a poorly designed website that’s hard to navigate or makes your business look unprofessional
• technical issues such as errors on your page

You can use Google Analytics to find out what your bounce rate is and the average amount of time people spend on the different sections of your website.

Tips to lower your bounce rate

Here are some top tips to reduce your bounce rate and get people spending longer on your company’s website.

1. Embrace multimedia. Words are important, but they can only do so much. Often photograph slideshows, audio and video will help keep people’s attention.
2. Make your content readable. Make sure the content on your website is well-written without mistakes. Be careful not to create one large piece of dense text which visitors to your website will find difficult to read. Instead, break it down into short paragraphs with headings and use bold fonts or italics to make your key words and phrases stand out.
3. Add internal links.Encourage visitors to go to other pages on your site by including internal links throughout your website. These links will provide you with SEO value and will also help your potential customers to find information which is relevant to them.
4. Include a call to action. Asking people who visit your website to interact with you will keep them on your site longer and hopefully increase their interest in your products or services. This could include asking them to leave comments on your company’s blog or inviting them to visit another part of your website.