5 Ways to Reduce Bounce Rates on Your Blog

This article was updated on August 6th, 2020 at 05:57 am

When a blogger is working hard to increase his/her blog’s search performance, what is the one thing that can instantly frustrate them? A high bounce rate! It is the percentage of single page visits or web sessions calculated by Google Analytics, which means the number of visits during which a person leaves the website or “bounces” from the landing page without browsing any further or viewing other pages within the same site.

Leading experts believe that when the bounce rate is in the range of 26% to 40%, things are pretty good and there is no need to worry. There is still no need to worry if the bounce rate increases to the range of 41% to 55%. However, things can become a matter of concern if the bounce rate reaches somewhere in the range of 56% to 70%.

According to Google, for those websites whose homepage is a gateway to a lot of relevant information, such as product pages, news articles and checkout processes, a high bounce rate is no less than a nightmare. It indirectly communicates the message that your efforts are not successful in attracting the right visitors to your site.

Here are a few tips that you can use to decrease the bounce rate and ensure that the visitor spends more time on your site.

5 Tips to Decrease the Bounce Rate

1. Improve Your Content’s Readability:
   Are you scaring away your readers with a large amount of textual information? Readability and legibility of the text, as well as smart formatting are important factors when you are trying to attract the right kind of audience to your blog. The text should be crisp, to the point and offer all the information that can satisfy the needs of the visitor. Long, rambling text that does not have any visual breaks will only scare people away.
2. Website Should be Optimized for Mobile:
   According to data published by Statista, mobile devices accounted for 49.74% of web page views worldwide, as of February 2017. It was further added that between 2016 and 2021, the global mobile data traffic was expected to increase nearly seven-fold. In the restricted amount of screen space that a smartphone or tablet offers, you need to make sure that users get all the information they need and can easily click the button they’re aiming for.
3. Optimize Webpage Load Time:
   Just like a high bounce rate is irritating to a blogger, long load times easily frustrate visitors, regardless of whether the content is good or not. According to survey results published by Akamai, 49% of mobile internet users expect a webpage to load in less than 4 seconds. Even on a computer or laptop, the visitor is likely to move on to another page if a webpage takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
4. Don’t Let Your Blog Turn into a Junkyard:
   A blogger needs to understand that the reason a visitor turns to a blog is to find useful information in the form of relevant content, offers and other materials. However, many bloggers get easily tempted by the idea of flooding their blog with offers, ads, award emblems and many other things that easily overshadow the main piece of information. Even if you want to, use the sidebar only to offer something that provides the reader additional value.
5. Don’t Confuse with Multiple Calls to Action:
   More CTAs on a single page actually indicates the confusion going on in the writer’s mind regarding their topic, which can be equally overwhelming for the reader. The visitor is coming to your webpage to find an answer or get something done. So, give them a solution, rather than confusing them further.

Use the above-mentioned tips to increase your blog’s relevance and reduce the bounce rate.