High bounce rates are the scourge of website owners. With most website traffic being lost within the first two pages of the visitor's journey, engaging in conversion optimisation services to reduce your bounce rate is a key strategy in improving the effectiveness of your online investment.
The bounce rate of an individual page on a website is defined as the percentage of visitors who land on the page and then leave without moving any deeper into your site. They represent potential lost customers/leads/what have you and reducing their number increases your chances of obtaining a positive outcome from their visit.
With this in mind the following are five hot tips to start you on the path to lower bounce rates and, as a result, higher conversions.
Relevance is Key
If there is one watchword that should be on the lips of every website owner it is relevance. Examine your statistics. When people are landing on page x what keywords are the coming in on under? When your visitor types in a search term to find your page they are expressing a need they wish to have fulfilled. Study the terms people are finding your key entry pages under and ensure that your content makes it clear from the start that your visitor has landed in the right place.
Why am I here?
Many web pages forget to properly contextualise the visitor's initial site experience. It isn't enough to simply explain what the web page is about; you need to give the reason to hang around. Make use of clear headings and subheadings that explain the benefits the visitor will experience by reading the content on your site.
Avoid Dead Ends
Hyperlinks are the backbone of the internet yet so many websites are happy to assume that visitors will know what to do once they have finished with page one and give the visitor nowhere else to go. Build traction with your visitor by providing links in your copy that will point them towards pages they may logically wish to read after finishing with this one. Providing no way out of the page outside of your main navigation is a sure-fire way of turning that visitor into a bounce.
Don't Scare Your Visitor Off
No one likes reading vast reams of text on a monitor without a good reason. Make your visitors life easy by properly breaking up text so it is easier on the eye. Make use of bold text to help them understand the basic premise of the copy without having to read through every line. Use images to break things up and make the page more visually enticing.
Testing, Testing
Why guess as to what your visitors want? While there are certainly key principles that can guide content design for the purpose of reducing your site's bounce rate the absolutely best method to help your quest for continued optimisation is to test different content to see what works. Tools such as Google's Website Optimizer are perfect for website owners seeking to discover what their visitors really want through their site. By testing different variations of your landing pages with live traffic you get the best possible guide to what works when reducing your bounce rate.
Bounce rates are a fact of internet life but that doesn't mean you have to live with them. Alkemi has an incredible track record with improving website conversion with a number of different tools including landing page optimisation. If high bounce rates are keeping your website from reaching its full potential do not hesitate to contact us today.
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