How to Reduce Bounce Rate and Keep People on Your Website

Your website only has a matter of seconds to capture the attention of visitors in the fast-paced digital world. If visitors arrive at your site only to quickly leave without engaging, that is a good indicator you have a high bounce rate and this can negatively impact your conversions, your sales, and your search engine optimization.
Here’s the good news. You can lower your bounce rate by making smart improvements that encourage visitors to stay on site longer, explore more, and engage with your calls-to-action.

1. 1. Understand What Bounce Rate Really Means
      The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that arrive on a page of your website and leave, without clicking to view another page.
      A high bounce rate can indicate that:
      Visitors weren’t satisfied with your content.
      The page loaded slowly or was hard to navigate.
      The content or design wasn’t engaging enough.
      Before you do anything you have to see why people are quickly leaving. Use programs like Hotjar or Google Analytics that track visitor behavior.

2. 2. Get Your Website Speed in Check
      If your site loads very slowly, your visitors won’t wait for it to come up – they will simply close the tab.
      General tips to speed up your site:
      Compress images without image quality loss.
      Pick a quality hosting company.
      Minify your code and set the browser cache.
      Consider using a Content Delivery Network (CDN).
      A one-second delay can greatly increase your bounce rate.

3. 3. Make Your Content Engaging Immediately
      People tend to leave quickly if the first thing they see doesn’t engage them.
      Make headlines clear and emphasize the benefits.
      Add short paragraphs and utilize bullet lists for ease of reading.
      Use quality images, infographics, and videos.
      Engage your visitors right away with a hook that addresses their pain.

4. 4. Make Sure It is Mobile Friendly
      Most traffic is now from mobile devices, and a non-responsive website means that you will lose people.
      Test your site across devices and screen sizes.
      Make fonts and buttons large and easy to read/click.
      Keep page layouts simple for easy navigation.

5. 5. Always Use Clear Calls to Action (CTA)
      Visitors should always know what you want them to do next.
      Place your CTAs above the fold.
      Make use of phrases that encourage action, such as “Get Your Free Guide” or “Book a Demo.”
      Users may become overwhelmed by too many options.

6. 6. Enhance Internal Linking
      Your website visitors may want to find other contextual information once on your web site.
      You can have related articles at the bottom of your blog.
      You can link inside your content to relevant case studies, product pages, or guides.
      You may want to create a logical navigation structure so your site visitors can quickly find what they need.

7. 7. Match Content to Visitor Intent
      You can do everything right, but if a visitor clicks on a link that says they will see one thing, and they see another, they will bounce off your page.
      Verify that your meta description and title correspond to the content.
      Identify the intent of your blog posts and match visitor needs, to the intended use.
      Do not click-bait, and disappoint users.

8. 8. Design with Clean and Professional Look
      Visitors will bounce if your website is cluttered or out of date.
      To make your information more readable, use white space and correctly align and space it.
      Use one color scheme, and maintain branding as close as possible.
      Limit the exposure and use of pop-ups; most site visitors detest them, and will bounce because of it!

          Conclusion
          Minimizing bounce rate isn’t as simple as making one change or one fix and continuing                  with the way business is done as normal. It’s about creating a better user experience from             the time someone lands on your web site. Your focus should be the user experience:                    Speedy, Mobile Friendly, Rich Engaging Content and Clear Navigation. When visitors see                that your site is both useful and engaging (and easy to navigate) they will tend to spend                more time on your site, view more pages and carry out transactions which has value for                your brand which will add to the credibility of the site and conversions for the brand. In my            capacity as a Digital Marketing Consultant in Thrissur, I focus on managing these aspects           of the users experience so that the visitor spends longer on the site and this equals                       measurable growth for your business.