One of the big problems that often makes people feel frustrated after creating a website is the high bounce rate. For those who are still lay and beginners, this term may sound foreign. But if you have often managed websites, of course you have often heard this word, but it is still a frightening specter.
Especially for those who are engaged in digital marketing and business owners who always rely on online promotions as a sales strategy. They consider that a high bounce rate is a source of failure in conducting business and marketing activities through internet technology, especially websites.
What is Bounce Rate?
If you are still confused about what a bounce rate is, this word means a percentage of website visits. For example, there are visitors who only briefly open the site. After that, just leave immediately and do no other actions, for example, enter the link, register, let alone make a transaction.
So you can conclude that the bounce rate is the ratio between visits on a unique page and the total number of site visits. So the higher the bounce rate of a site indicates that the quality of the website is bad and vice versa.
More broadly, a good bounce rate is part of the measure of the success of your business campaign. You can observe this size yourself through digital marketing metrics. The form is in the form of a set of values with the main function as an aid to see results for digital marketing efforts that have been running.
As an illustration, the quality of a website can be said to be very good if it has a bounce rate of less than 40%. This means that out of 100 website visits, there are more than 60 visitors who perform other actions when opening the site. Meanwhile the website becomes bad if the bounce-rate is more than 70%.
Then to find out the high or low bounce rate, you don't need to calculate it manually. Take advantage of the Google Analytics facility and there is a special feature to see the bounce rate of your own site.
Why my bounce rate is increasing?
There are several main factors that cause a high bounce rate and the following is a complete explanation.
1. Not Mobile Friendly
Nowadays, most internet users prefer to use smartphones rather than laptops or computers when exploring cyberspace. So if you create a website, you must be able to provide a site that is mobile friendly. A mobile friendly website will make it easier for visitors to enter your website.
2. Unattractive Design
An unattractive website design is also often the cause of a high bounce rate. To overcome this problem, make visitors feel comfortable and don't use a navigation system that is too complicated. Likewise, the completeness of its features must be able to provide convenience for browsing.
3. Not concerned with the User Interface
In addition to design errors, poor visual appearance is another reason for high bounce rates. This can happen because many visitors are in a hurry to leave on the grounds that fonts, images, and other elements that are visible to the eye look less attractive.
To avoid these problems, don't hesitate to apply user interface principles as an aid. Especially if you create a business website, so you can interact and attract lots of consumers in an easier way.
4. Loading Time Too Long
Website loading speed has a high effect on someone's interest in visiting the website. If the loading takes too long then this can be the cause of a high bounce rate.
Visitors often cancel their intention to open a site page if they feel their time is wasted because the loading process is very slow. To increase the loading speed of your website, immediately contact a web hosting service provider company that is able to do its job professionally.
5. Unqualified Content
The cause of the next high bounce rate is serving content that is not of high quality. Imagine if you wanted to find information on a website, but the content was only made carelessly. Definitely will feel bored and immediately close the site. So learn to create interesting content so that visitors feel at home opening website pages.
6. Irrelevant Topic
Still related to content, even though it has high traffic, it can still get a high bounce rate too. The reason is because the content you create turns out to be less relevant to the product you offer or has no connection at all to the niche website.
For example, you want to sell fashion products, but instead review other things about food. It could also be, your website niche is tourism but contains content that is not related to vacation and tourism activities. As a result, visitors will no longer be interested in visiting the website.
7. Wrong Implementing SEO Methods
The cause of the next high bounce rate is serving content that is not of high quality. Imagine if you wanted to find information on a website, but the content was only made carelessly. Definitely will feel bored and immediately close the site. So learn to create interesting content so that visitors feel at home opening website pages.
8. Irrelevant Topic
Still related to content, even though it has high traffic, it can still get a high bounce rate too. The reason is because the content you create turns out to be less relevant to the product you offer or has no connection at all to the niche website.
For example, you want to sell fashion products, but instead review other things about food. It could also be, your website niche is tourism but contains content that is not related to vacation and tourism activities. As a result, visitors will no longer be interested in visiting the website.
9. Wrong Implementing SEO Methods
Lack of accuracy in using SEO is also often the cause of high bounce rates. In this case, you need to know the various SEO mistakes that must be avoided in order to get a lower bounce rate.
Also, don't forget to learn how web crawlers work in generating page recommendations on the SERP (Search Engine Result Page). Both have a very close relationship with SEO rules. Then to get even lower bounce rates, use trusted SEO services.
10. Incorrectly Setting Up Internal Links
Another mistake that often occurs and is the cause of a high bounce rate is an error when setting up internal links. When creating content, you will want to even have to put some links.
When performing this task, arrange for the link or links to lead to a new page. The goal is that visitors don't have to bother using the back button to return to the first page. After that, increase the Organic Click Through Rate (CTR) on Google because it can also have a positive impact on the use of internal links.
11. Blank Pages
Technical errors in the form of blank pages are the cause of high bounce rates that are often not realized by web developers. A blank page is a web page that when someone opens it turns out to be empty, aka the 404 Not Found error, and you should be able to resolve it as soon as possible.
Apart from causing a high bounce rate, this condition also has a major impact on the search system. Even Google can lower your site's ranking in their search engine. So when you experience a problem like this, you have to fix it as soon as possible.
12. Incorrectly Arrange Advertising Banners and Pop Ups
If you are a web developer who often earns income from Adsense, you should really consider the banner ad layout layout. If the arrangement is not right, it will be the cause of a high bounce rate. For example closing content so that it causes discomfort for visitors when they want to read.
Likewise, too many banners, especially in the form of videos, can make the audience even more irritated and immediately close the website. You also need to pay attention to when creating popups. If there is an error and it is not SEO friendly, it can have the same result.
What is the Tool to Check Bounce Rate?
You can use tools such as Google Analytics to check the bounce rate on your website. Here is how you can check the bounce rate, namely open the Google Analytics page. Next, you need to click the Behavior menu, then click the Overview sub-menu.
On the Overview page, you can get the average bounce rate of all pages on your website. Apart from that, you can also get a bounce rate report per page by opening the Full Report menu.
How to Reduce Bounce Rate
After knowing the causes and how to check the bounce rate, next you need to understand how to reduce the bounce rate appropriately. Things you can do to reduce the bounce rate are as follows:
1. Content Quality Optimization
Even though your content has provided all the user's information needs, if the content is not neatly structured users will be reluctant to read it. When users have difficulty finding the information they need, they will turn to other websites that have a neater structure and are more comfortable to read.
Make short paragraphs so that internet users can find information quickly. When the paragraph is too long, readers cannot immediately find the point of the paragraph. You can also add headings or explanations in the form of points using bullets & numbering.
2. Increase Page Loading Speed
Website visitors don't like slow page loading. Google states that as many as 53 percent of internet users will leave a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load a page. This is why one way to reduce the bounce rate is to increase page loading speed.
Websites with long loading times encourage visitors to look for other websites that can provide information more quickly. This can cause all your efforts in creating quality content to be wasted.
3. Pay attention to Mobile-friendliness
Many internet users access the web via mobile devices. However, unfortunately not all websites provide a responsive display on mobile devices. Of course, this could be the cause of a high bounce rate.
So that the website is not abandoned by users, web owners need to present a site that is mobile friendly. In this way, the organic traffic received will increase because the website can be accessed from all types of devices.
4. Reduce Unimportant Elements
One of the criteria for a good quality website is a web design that is simple and easy to use. However, on some websites there are often too many in-line promotions, pop-up advertisements, or other elements that disturb user comfort.
You should reduce the use of these less important elements to optimize the user experience on a web page. Just add the most important call-to-action (CTA) so users can easily navigate your web page. That way, the bounce rate will also decrease.
5. Show Attractive Visuals
Users will get bored if the content you present only displays a bunch of text. To overcome this, you can add photos, illustrations, videos, statistical data, or infographics to your articles. Apart from making articles interesting, visual media also makes it easier for readers to understand your content.
Conclusion
Bounce rate is one metric that you need to monitor regularly. Even though it's not always bad, a high bounce rate can be an indicator of poor page quality. Immediately carry out optimization by following the method for reducing the bounce rate that we have discussed above.
This is an in-depth discussion regarding the bounce rate starting from the meaning, causes, how to check it, to how to reduce the bounce rate. Now is the time for you to optimize your site and make visitors feel at home diving into your site, not just visiting one page.
Hopefully the explanation related to the causes of the high bounce rate above can enlighten you. So that your website can not only appear on the first page of search engines, but also make visitors interested and not hesitate to take other actions.
What's more, if the site you manage is a user friendly website, it will make visitors feel more comfortable and can increase your ranking in search engines. So that the goal of advancing business and improving work careers is also more easily achieved.