Bounce Rate is counted among the most common conversion killers today. When you have a high number of site visitors that leave your website without spending some time on it or converting, something is wrong. And the faster you remedy this issue, the better off your business will be. Whether or not you’ve already attempted to reduce the bounce rate on your website, revisiting the topic and reading up on it never hurts. In fact, there are plenty of different ideas out there that people use to reduce the exit rate on their sites. Movers Development has decided to explore some of the most popular and effective ones right here. Keep reading to learn more.
What is Bounce Rate?
- The Bounce Rate presents the percentage of site visitors that landed on and decided to leave a website before visiting any other pages.
The higher the bounce rate on your website, the more likely it is that you were unable to engage customers in the right way. And as a result, most will end up leaving your website and never looking back. That can result in a lower conversion rate in addition to the potential devaluation of your web pages.
What counts as a bounce?
- Users clicking on a link to a different website;
- Site visitors clicking on the Back button to leave your website;
- Closing the open window/tab;
- Typing a new URL or search query in the tab;
- Session time-out (usually happens due to web hosting errors).
If you are thinking back on your time spent online and how you do all these things, you are right – it happens. But the focus here is whether or not you decide to make a purchase or explore a website before leaving it. That is the main difference when comparing a good bounce rate vs. a bad bounce rate.
How does the Bounce Rate affect the overall performance of your website?
In case you are wondering whether or not there is a pre-defined percentage metric that marks the overall success of a bounce rate – it exists. And it goes along these stats:
- Anything over 80% is considered a very bad bounce rate, indicating that your website is very faulty.
- 70–80% marks a poor overall quality of a website and one that has plenty of room for improvement.
- 50–70% would be an average bounce rate – one that can sway both ways and secure a passable number of leads.
- 30 – 50% is an excellent ratio and it should be the goal of each website owner.
- Anything below 20% is usually a tracking error due to poor analytics and should be remeasured.
Of course, this scale is not industry-specific but rather general and determined on a global scale. These scales might slightly vary, depending on your niche, so you should carefully examine your competitors before setting a goal for your website. If your exit rate is high, you need to revisit ways to reduce bounce rate on your website, such as page loading time, user navigation on your website, the overall web design, user experience, calls to action, content quality, etc.
15 ways to reduce the bounce rate on your website
Recognizing a high exit rate on your site is just the first step in making it better. The second is to identify the issues your website has and creating a plan of action to remedy those issues. And that is exactly what the list below offers – 15 ways to improve your website and potentially lower your exit rate:
1. Consider the user experience your website provides
When people visit a website, they want to be able to interact with it in a simple and time-effective manner. It is your job to enable that by optimizing your website to accommodate the needs of your target audiences. After all, the initial interaction people have with your website will also influence how they define your brand, products, authority, services, etc.
That is why you want to create a website that is not only easy-to-use but is also appealing to the eye of site visitors. That way, you will be able to reduce the bounce rate on your website. Of course, creating an optimal user experience for your website visitors is an entirely separate topic on its own. But you need to take it into consideration if you want people to spend more time on your website, so it relates to this subject as well.
2. Make your website simpler to navigate through
To link onto the topic of user experience, we need to also include website navigation among the ways to influence the bounce rate. When people arrive on a website in search of products, services, or answers – they expect to find them as easily as possible. And that means that if any other questions or topics might arise, your website enables them to find them by simply switching over to other pages. So long as they remain on your website, you will be able to reduce your overall exit rate.
3. Ensure that your website is easier to take in
A lot of bounces occur as a result of people not finding the visual appeal of content on a website to their liking. And a lot of website owners tend to neglect this. That’s why you want to ensure that your content is easy to absorb on all devices.
- Make it too small and users will need to zoom in or squint to read it.
- If it’s too large, it will appear endless to go through it.
- Make it too flashy or decorative and people won’t focus on the content itself.
But you need to go beyond font and color if you want to reduce the bounce rate on your website. Your moving company website needs to have proper spacing, padding, margins, etc. – all to ensure that your pages are clean and easy to read through.
4. Remove any unnecessary popups
Unless it’s a promotional offer or discount – most people dislike the very mention of a popup. It’s one of the curses of the modern consumer. And most can remedy this with the implementation of an ad blocker, but there are still websites where this doesn’t help. That is why you want to avoid discouraging potential leads with too many popups once they arrive on your website. Instead, focus your efforts on what the people will actually want to find on the page and give them the space to explore it all.
5. Take the time to plan out how you position your calls to action
Having a high-converting and engaging CTA (call to action) that is well-positioned can significantly influence your site visitors. Those first ten seconds when someone ends up on one of your pages is crucial. It is at that point that they need to instantly be able to spot an engaging CTA that will show them the way toward a product or service. Most digital marketers will tell you to focus on the hero section of your website given that it is the first part of the page that people see. When it comes to the actual call to action, it needs to be clear and direct, sending a clear message to users.
6. Work on your page loading speed
Consumers today can be very demanding when it comes to the speed of getting the information they search for. In fact, online studies show that web pages that take up to two seconds to load have a bounce rate as low as 9%, whereas pages that take five seconds have a 38 percent bounce rate.
There are plenty of tools that you can use to measure the loading speed of your web pages. Additionally, there are countless ways to speed up your loading page speed:
- Optimize your images
- Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
- Use caching plugins
- Consider a faster hosting provider, etc.
7. Implement A/B Testing
Sometimes, it’s the smallest things that can influence a bounce rate. Whether it’s a badly formulated headline, the wrong choice of color for the CTA button, or the wrong image in the background, something is off. And you shouldn’t have to change the entire page layout just because of it.
Instead, you can simply turn to A/B testing solutions. Create several versions of the same page, with minor changes, and show them to separate the audience to find out which performs better. You can create different landing pages, targeting different audiences, regions, keywords, etc.
8. Create targeted Landing Pages
Landing pages can make a lot of difference for websites, not only in terms of rankings but also traffic and conversions. The cornerstone content you create needs to be at the top of its game if you want to reduce the bounce rate on your website. You want to look at your inner page like your homepage and consider each part of them separately while also looking at them as a whole. Each page should represent an important part of your website and each should have the goal to convert leads that end up on it.
9. Invest time in selecting top-quality images for your pages
When it comes to decreasing the bounce rate for your website, you can do a lot with the right images. There are a lot of moving companies out there that neglect the importance of having their own photos on websites. People trust what they can see, hear, and relate to. They want to interact with the company they want to hire, and they can hardly do that when all they see are template images of random picture-perfect families.
Instead, why not use the background images on your website to develop your brand as a moving company? And this is something that even companies like Google have discovered to be true. Having that white background minimalistic design no longer does the trick. Instead, you need to focus your efforts on creating high-quality images that showcase the core of your business.
10. Engage audiences through promotional videos on pages
People love to see short videos of products and services. It grabs more attention than texts and images, and it is more engaging for customers, especially nowadays. The only thing to remember is that consumers don’t have time for 15-minute video presentations – they want a short and to-the-point message. So, you need to put all that advertising ideas into short-burst powerful videos that will leave a lasting impression. And the best thing is that you can create budget-friendly videos that easily impress people today.
11. Let your past customers speak for your business
People are most trusting of products/services that others before them have tested and reviewed. So, one of the ways to reduce the bounce rate on your website is to let the testimonials of others speak for you. Introduce a reviews section on each page and let anyone who lands on your pages see that you have a legit claim with the positive experiences to back it all up.
- You can even use testimonials and convert them into success stories, illustrations of your clients, short video posts of them thanking your company, etc.
12. Plan out your content strategy
You can come across countless recommendations when it comes to content strategies. Each marketer has their own opinion on the matter. As a result, it can prove difficult to identify the right one for your business. Hence, you need to tread carefully before choosing your content strategy. And once you do make the choice, it’s important to stay consistent rather than switch in-between different ones. It’s always a good idea to analyze the leaders in your niche to be in a better position to create your own content creation path.
13. Demonstrate your authority
With competitive industries such as moving and storage, consumers have higher expectations as time passes. That means that your site visitors will want to take the time to carefully examine your offer and compare it to other companies before actually making the call to hire you. And among the many factors, they will take into consideration, determining your website value will be among those. Therefore, your goal should be to ensure that your site is not only reliable but also has the credibility to impress potential leads by showcasing:
- Glowing Reviews & Quality Scores
- Accreditations & Memberships
- Industry Affiliations
- Awards & Certifications
- Partnerships & Sponsorships
All this goes toward securing long-term trust and loyalty with customers, which will also help you reduce the bounce rate on your website.
14. Retarget users that abandon your website
When you are looking for ways to reduce the exit rate on your website, you have to consider the users that come and simply decide to leave without engaging. You can’t really be sure why they choose the left and whether or not your website had something to do with it. So, the least you can do is try and turn their heads around. Offer a subscription form by inviting them to leave an email so that you might reach out to them later on. This will give them a chance to stay in touch if they simply had to leave due to other reasons not directly related to your company.
15. Remarket to engaged users
Users that engage with your content can also leave your website without converting. This is a common course of action when it comes to blog posts and FAQs. They found the answers they were looking for and just left after a while. On the one hand, this is great as you demonstrated authority and knowledge with your content. On the other hand, those same readers didn’t actually convert, contributing to your business. Therefore, you always want to leave them wanting more.
- Sometimes, you can use promotional banners with CTAs throughout the articles.
- Other times, having a sidebar menu next to the articles can also point visitors toward converting, thus not only lowering the bounce rate on your website but also benefiting your business.
Make educated calls on how to reduce the bounce rate on your website
Identifying your top pages with the highest bounce rate is always a great starting point when it comes to optimizing your moving company website. You can do this by going to Google Analytics and clicking on Behavior » Site Content » Landing Pages
Starting from the most popular pages on your website will show instant results on the overall time people spend and the conversion rate. Of course, the more ways to reduce the exit rate on your website you implement on these pages, the better off you will be. For additional information or professional advice, feel free to contact Movers Development and consult with our professional team directly.
