5 Tips for Lowering Bounce Rates

Bounce rates are the bane of any SEO or website owner’s existence.  A low bounce rate, say of 20 percent, indicates that visitors to your site are engaged. A high bounce rate, on the other hand, indicates that they’re coming in on one page and then exiting from the same page.  They are not engaging with the site or delving deeper. This often means that they are not completing, or even seeing, your primary call to action.  How can you decrease bounce rates to get the most out of your SEO efforts?

1. Be mindful of your ad placement.  While Google does have some guidelines for ad placement, make sure that when visitors click on your page, they are not immediately confronted by overwhelming ads. This creates a spammy look and decreases the feeling of authenticity and value in your site.  In other words, visitors click on, and click right back out because they perceive your site to be fluff or spam.
2. Link to internal content. If you have a blog post about SEO tactics, for instance, link to other posts featuring related information.  If someone clicks through for certain information, it is likely they will want to find out more, so make it convenient for them.
3. Use Google Analytics to determine which keywords are drawing visitors. Which pages are most effectively optimisied? How can you apply the same tactics to other pages?  It is also helpful to ensure that you have content directly related to the keywords that draw visitors or you will increase your bounce rate.
4. Use a variety of media. Add a relevant video, infographic, or image to increase visual appeal and keep visitors clicking.
5. Make sure your page speed is up to snuff; you can help boost it by minimising third-party content, such as widgets, or “lazy loading” it (display written content while images load).

And one more tip as a bonus: make sure you always have great content.  There is really no better way to reduce your bounce rate than to offer something of interest and value to your visitors.  You will end up increasing repeat visitors as well.