9 Ways to Reduce the Bounce Rate on Websites and Blogs

How To Reduce The Bounce Rate

Every blog owner would want his blog crowded by visitors every day. Various SEO optimization steps are also applied to obtain satisfactory traffic numbers. However, after that another problem came, namely that these visitors only opened one page and were not interested in browsing other pages on the website / blog. This situation is called the bounce rate.

What is the Bounce Rate?

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who immediately leave a website after opening just one page (Google Analytics). Yoast SEO added, bounce rate is a condition where visitors only open one page of the website without taking any action. They do not press the menu button, CTA, or other internal links on the page.

The bounce rate is calculated using the distribution of single page visits for all incoming traffic. For example, say your website gets 1000 and 500 traffic including a single page visit. So your bounce rate is 50%. The higher bounce rate indicates something is wrong with your strategy.

A high bounce rate indicates one of two possibilities. First, the quality of the content on the page is too bad so visitors are not interested in exploring other content. Second, the content is not in accordance with the intent (intention) of visitors so they are looking for content from other websites in accordance with their wishes.

At this point you may have started to wonder whether your website or blog has a high bounce rate. You don't need to calculate the manual because you can use Google Analytics to find out the bounce rate of your website / blog. If you don't have Google Analytics on the website, you can install it by following the guide to install Google Analytics on WordPress.

How to Check the Bounce Rate in Google Analytics

Here's how to check the bounce rate in Google Analytics:

1. Open Google Analytics
2. Click Behavior> Overview

Get an Overall Bounce Rate Summary
In the overview menu you will get an average bounce rate for all pages on your website / blog as below:


Open the Bounce Rate Report Per Page
You can also get a bounce rate report per page by opening the Full Report menu and a report will appear as below:


Already get a bounce rate report for your website / blog? Is your website bounce rate high? If so, don't worry because this article will guide you how to reduce the bounce rate.

9 Ways to Lower the Bounce Rate

1. Improve Content Quality

Even though visitors have opened your website, they will not necessarily read your content to the end. If your content is not neatly organized, visitors will find it difficult to read it. Visitors who have difficulty reading your content will move on to other websites with similar content that are arranged more neatly and are easy to read.

Remember, your content is not the only one on the internet. There are thousands or even hundreds of thousands of other websites / blogs that discuss similar topics. So you should be able to make the best content possible so that visitors do not switch to another website or blog. How to?

First, divide the article into short paragraphs. Internet users are accustomed to reading fast and short paragraphs make it easy for them to read quickly. When looking at long paragraphs, the reader cannot immediately see the essence of the paragraph.

Second, take advantage of subheading. Subheading helps the reader to find important points in an article. For example, in this article there are three important points that I want to convey, namely What Is a Bounce Rate, How to Check a Bounce Rate, and How to Reduce a Bounce Rate. These three points I wrote using Heading 2 from WordPress.

Third, add interesting visuals. Readers will get bored easily if you only see the text from the beginning to the end of the article. You can add photos, illustrations, infographics, or even videos in your article. In addition to making articles more interesting, visual media also makes it easier for readers to understand your content.

2. Create an attractive story line

If in the first point I explain more about improving the quality of content technically, the second point I want to emphasize is an interesting storyline.

Neatly arranged content, but the ordinary storyline will be inferior to neatly arranged content and has an interesting storyline. Remember, there are thousands of content competing for one and the same keyword. So your content must be truly outstanding among other contents, both in terms of technical and story line.

A storytelling is considered good or interesting when the reader feels relatable to the story. Good storytelling makes the reader feel as though he is reading his own story or experience.

One effective way to create content that is relatable is to use second person pronouns like you, you, or you, according to the style of language that fits your audience. By using second-person pronouns, you can create interactive storylines as if the writer is talking to the reader.

In addition, put yourself in the position of the reader. When writing articles, ask yourself, what are the problems faced by readers? What solutions can you offer? What do readers want to know? What kind of terms will the reader easily understand? That way you will write content that readers really need.

3. Use Natural Popups

Lots of debate regarding the use of popups. On the one hand, popups can help you get leads through subscriber blogs or newsletters. On the other hand, popups remain unpopular with most users.

You can still use popups, but don't overdo it. Excessive what I mean here is that visitors are continually presented with a popup every few minutes when reading content.

Excessive use of popups will only encourage visitors to close your website pages. According to one study, 70 percent of website visitors said excessive and irrelevant popups were annoying. So try to arrange popups to appear appropriately so that visitors are not upset.

4. Choose Relevant Topics

If your website or blog gets traffic from keywords that are completely unrelated to the product or service being sold, chances are the bounce rate will be high.

When doing keyword research, besides high search volume, you also need to consider its relevance to your product. For example, the product that you sell is clothing, but you write a blog article about an Indomie donut that is being hit.

Your blog might be able to get high traffic from the topic, but also followed by a high bounce rate because the topic is not relevant to your product.

5. Create Content According to Search Intent

Imagine, you type a keyword on Google then you click on one of the websites in the search results. After you read at a glance it turns out that the content on the website does not match what you expect. What will you do? Certainly repeat the process of searching for keywords until you find content that matches your intentions and desires (search intent).

The situation above is an example of why search intent is one of the components that determines the high and low bounce rate of your website. Readers will immediately leave your website when they know your content is not what they expected. Conversely, if your content meets expectations, they will read it through to completion.

To create content that matches the reader's search intent, you need to understand the kinds of search intent first. In general, keywords are divided into four based on search intent, namely informational, navigational, commercial investigation, and transactional.

First, informational keywords are the types of keywords that lead readers to content that provides a complete explanation of a topic. For example, when typing "how to create a blog", the reader wants to read content that guides him to create a blog from beginning to end.

Second, navigational keywords are keywords that usually directly point to a particular brand. For example, keywords like "Facebook", "Twitter", "YouTube", or "Instagram". When typing these keywords, users want to be directed directly to the official website of the brand, not directed to an explanation of the history of the brands.

Third, commercial investigation keywords are keywords that searchers use to get information about product comparisons from several brands.

Examples are keywords such as "best shoes", "best gaming smartphone", "best gaming laptop", or "best mouse". When searching for these keywords, users want to compare the strengths and weaknesses of each brand.

Fourth, transactional keywords are keywords that searchers use when they are in a purchase or transaction phase. Usually searchers use keywords that indicate transactions such as buy or cheap. For example, "buy a laptop", "buy a domain", or "buy a smartphone".

6. Increase Website Speed

One of the things that website visitors hate the most is slow loading. Old website loading makes website visitors annoyed and finally look for other websites that can provide information faster.

No matter how good the content you create, website visitors have no tolerance for slow loading. According to Google, 53 percent of internet users leave websites that load more than 3 seconds. In addition, 79 percent of people who were disappointed with the old loading website said they would not return to the website.

7. Create a Mobile Friendly Design

Mobile devices are the devices most widely used by Indonesian internet users to access the internet. Based on Google's survey, 94 percent of Indonesian internet users access the internet through mobile devices.

With smartphones as the main device for Indonesian internet users, website and blog owners are required to provide mobile-friendly websites. Unfortunately, not all website themes provide responsive website themes on mobile devices. You can make a WordPress theme become mobile friendly by using the help of a plugin. Check out the full explanation of mobile friendly website plugins in this article.

8. Set the Link to "Open in New Tab"

In a content, of course you put at least three or four links, both internal and external links. Platforms like WordPress automatically set the reader to open links in the same tab as the page being opened.

Unfortunately, this will damage the reader experience because they need to press the back button to return to the first page.

Imagine, if the reader opens five links in an article, they need to press the back button repeatedly to return to the start page. Of course it is tiring for the reader and harms you because the higher exit rate means that the bounce rate also goes up.

Therefore, you need to direct the blog / website reader to a new tab when clicking on a link in the article. That way the reader does not need to press the back button repeatedly to return to the first page. You can modify the settings for the open link in new tab on WordPress easily using the help of the WP External Links plugin.

9. Show Credibility

When looking for reading sources from the internet, readers want to get information from credible sources, not fake blogs.

The credibility of your blog can be seen from the themes you use, be sure to use professional themes. Professional WordPress themes don't always pay. You can find a wide selection of professional WordPress themes in free WordPress theme articles and cool blog templates.

In addition to the theme you are using, you also need to show proof of the credibility of your blog. One way is to display the profile of a blog author like on Blog Niagahoster. The author's profile of the blog is useful to convince readers that the articles on the blog are the writings of the experts.

Conclusion

Bounce rate is one indicator that you should monitor regularly. A high bounce rate indicates that you have to fix your content strategy. It could be that the content written is not in accordance with the search intent of the reader or loading website / blog for too long so that readers are impatient and leave your website.

It is hoped that the nine ways to reduce the bounce rate above can help you make visitors more comfortable for your website and not just visit one page. Good luck!