How to reduce your site’s bounce rate

In search engine optimisation the emphasis is on making sure that users can easily get to your site from the various search engines, but what happens when users actually get to your site? This can be the difference between successfully harnessing the benefit of a good keyword ranking and not making any conversions on your site at all due to a high bounce rate.

There are many factors on sites which can account for a high bounce rate and I have listed some of them here. So, next time you go to your website take a look at some of these usability issues to see if you can improve user experience on your site which can ultimately help lead to a higher conversion rate for your goals.

Does your site take a long time to load?

Web users are impatient and if your site is slow loading due to things such as large image file sizes or a high level of server requests, they will navigate to another site instead.

Is your site badly designed?

First impressions are everything, and a messy looking, crowded site can turn users away. A good quality website has all the connotations of a good quality business which instils trust.

Can users easily navigate around your site?

If it is not easy for users to get to all the information they need on your site, they will go elsewhere to look for it.

Does your site have a splash page?

Splash pages are now a thing of the past and they can be annoying to users, who just want to be able to go directly to the information on the site. It can be particularly annoying for users when they have to sit through animation before they can see the content on the site.

Have a look through your site with fresh eyes, or get some friends to use it and give you some honest feedback. This will all help towards improving the user experience on your site.

Gemma Neesham
Project Manager