Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that hit a page and don’t visit any other pages within the same visit.

So bounce rate is a way for you to measure the quality of your site. Do your visitors like your page or do they run away from you. Your goal will be to make people stick around a little more and have them look at more then one page at your site.

Bounce rate stats will differ depending on the type of sites and pages you’re measuring. In Google Analytics, there is a page that allows you to compare your site’s bounce rate and metrics to other sites based on size and category.

Why Is Bounce Rate Important?

Think of it as your potential girlfriend or boyfriend – we would love to have her/him stick around a little more – right?

That’s why I will show you how to engaged your visitors so they stay with you 🙂

Google now says that the Page Rank in the search algorithm is almost useless. Instead, developers want to focus on results, CTR, and bounces, which provide the user with fuel gauges showing how effective the site is.

Google wants to stress that sites with high Page Rank does not necessarily get higher ranking than sites with a lower Page Rank. Small sites can improve their performance by making the content more relevant and useful.

So the conclusion is that you have to think of your sites bounces.

What is a high or a low bounce Rate?

Well there is no simple answer for that. I depends on which kind of website you have. Websites like online forums will have a much lower bounce rate compared to blogs. And why? Because when you go to online forums you will click around but when you go to a blog – it could because you have got a link with an interesting headline. Blogs have many subscribers, and those are users who might visit the blog only to read the latest post.

Read also my post about why a high bounce rate might not be a bad thing.

What is a high or low bounce rate?

I know – you wanna hear some numbers about the bounce rates so there they are.

If you have a blog the bounce rate could be above 70%. If you have many ads on your blog the bounce rate could be higher up to 80 or 85%. If you don’t have many ads on your blog and low traffic you bounce rate could be between 40% and 70%.

If you are very active on social networks – you will probably get a lot of traffic but also a much higher bounce rate. If you have a website with engaging content and a very user friendly design you bounce rate can be below 40%.

How to get a lower bounce rate

Okay let’s get practical. We want your visitors (or girlfriend/boyfriend) to stick around. But what can you do.

Theses advices will help you to make your readers click on more than one page on your site.

1) Layout and design

Theme Selection is maybe the most important to reduce bounce rate on a blog website. Most of the readers who bounced off, do not stay more than a few seconds on a blog, which means they didn’t even read your content.

A cluttered, disorganized theme can put your readers off, where a clean, professional looking theme can force them to at-least read your content. I would change my theme to a professional one rather than a free theme.

If your blog look creepy your bounce rate will get high. So choose your theme wisely.

2) Stay to your niche – Content

Content is king. So make sure you also publish quality content. Don’t copy content from other websites or blogs.

If your blog is about how to sell used cars make sure that you drive only those people to your blog who are really trying to sell their used car. Stay in your niche. So your ads or links have to be relevant for your target audience.

Don’t write an article about Formel 1 cars if your target audience what some good advice about selling their own car. Make your content relevant.

3) Font Size and Selection

Font selection depends on the size of the font and the readability.

In general you need to be sure your text is not too small. If you make it might not look good either. But remember to make it readable.
Serif fonts will help the reader to read smaller font sizes.

4) Related Articles

I have just learned that the position of the related articles is very important too. First of all you have to show related articles of couse.

It will give you much more clicks and therefor lower bounce rates.

5) Loading time

Your loading time is an important factor in SEO. But also for your bounce rate. Do you have heavy pictures or videos on your site. Your audience might not have the patient to stick around but will leave you right away.

6) Image Sizes

Image size can also be a factor in bounce rate. Nice and good size images attract readers.

Do a test. I hope you love to test. Remember to experiment and check out what your readers like. It can be very different depending on what kind of website you have. How important are your images, should there be more, fewer, larger, smaller…

Photos are a way to engage your visitors so they stay a little longer. When they stay longer its more likely that they will click on other pages on your site.

7) External links

Be careful to show links to external pages where people can read more information. This can create an exit point to your user. Maybe you can put the external links at the bottom of your page. Maybe you can put your external link on another page. So when people read your article tell them to click here to get more information about the subject.

Remember by the way always to open external links in a new window – and why? Because that will give your reader a chance to get back to your site.

8) SEO headlines – keywords

It’s tempting to use an important keyword in your headline, because it will help your SEO. But if the article is not about that subject your reader will leave you right away.

9) Search bar

Remember always to have a search bar. And make the seach bar visible for your readers always. In that way then can find other contents on your blog or website.

10) About me

Many people would love to see who is behind the blog. With an About Me page you will get people clicking and therefor lower your bounce rate.

11) Tags

Use more tags so your readers know what they are going to read about. This way you will not disappoint your reader.

12) Make it easy for people to make a comment

Depending on your system – when people make a comment often it will refresh your pages and that means that your visitor has seen more then one page 🙂

13) Internal linking

In your article do some internal linking. You probably have another article about something that is close to the content of the article you are making. So in the content do a linking.

14) Sidebar

Put usefull data in the sidebar rather then just ads.

Wishing you a great day. Enjoy
Henrik