The word bounce rate is thrown around so casually nowadays, but what does it actually mean?

“Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page.”

This means they’ve arrived on a certain page on your website, in most cases, it would be your homepage and they’ve left without clicking through into any further pages.

Having a high bounce rate is not a good statistic for your website and not something you can brag about… This can suggest one of many things, including that your website might have a lacklustre design or maybe even poor loading speeds.

Web Design

Let’s start off with the design of your website… if you’re an avid reader of our blog, you’ll know how important design is to us. The design of a webpage is the first thing a user will see once they arrive. We can’t stress how important it is to have a design which looks clean, looks good and engages visitors from the start. Design plays a big role in how visitors to your website, perceive your business. They’ll make their decisions right away and poor design is probably why they’re clicking away. 

Be sure to contact a web design agency if you think your web design is letting you down.

Add/Improve Call-to-actions

Call-to-actions are important! They direct the user to perform certain actions or visit pages you want them to click through to. Call-to-actions or CTA should use direct language, be clear and entice visitors to click on them. Ensure they are placed where someone will look otherwise you’ll miss your chance to retain your visitors.

Not having CTAs on your webpages, can leave your visitors feeling confused about where they should click on to continue their journey. If you make their lives easier, they’ll be less inclined to click away from your website.

An example of a CTA could be “Click here to view our work”, this would link to a page which showcases work your company has done or a portfolio page.

Website Speed

Having poor loading speeds is the number one reason people click away from websites. No one wants to wait for a page to load in this day and age. For every second your website takes to load, your conversion rate can drop by 7%. Be sure you’re using the right hosting services, to ensure:

• Fast loading speeds
• You’re using the latest technologies
• You’re optimising your website

If you haven’t updated your website for a long time, chances are your website is running on an old version of a CMS platform. Click here to read an article which gives you a more in-depth look into why you should keep your website updated.

Easy to Use Navigation

To retain your website visitors, you need to offer them a seamless user experience. This also means having easy to use navigation system. The goal is to offer the user a smooth and fluid journey from page to page, so the navigation bar must always be visible and placed in an area which is easy to reach. Including a navigation bar which follows your users along the page is a good idea. This is also known as “Sticky navigation”. Don’t over complicate your navigation menu, keep it simple.

Paired along with navigation, another key component is an in-depth search system. In recent years, everyone has become accustomed to searching to get where they want to be, whether it be through your favourite search engine or asking your phone to do the hard work for you. Some visitors like having the option to search for their query on a website, rather having to scroll through several pages to arrive at the same destination…

Responsive Design

Over 50% of your visitors are on mobile, so including a responsive design on your website is a must. If a website is not responsive, we can guarantee the visitor will immediately leave the page. 

Gone are the days of pinching and zooming on phones. In today’s day and age, responsive design is most people’s expectations. It offers a clean user experience and helps your visitors view the website as you intended it to be. If you pair this with a couple of good CTAs you’ll be sure to keep your users on your website.

If you need to speak to an expert at a web design agency. Please feel free to get in touch with us today.