It can be overwhelming to stay on top of so many different website metrics while figuring out how to adjust your website to improve them. Your website bounce rate is one of those key measurements.

Knowing your bounce rate can give you additional insight into how your visitors are interacting with your site, which in turn gives you opportunities to lower it. 

What is bounce rate, and why does it matter? 

Before we dive into ways to reduce bounce rate, it’s important to understand how it’s calculated. According to Google, a bounce in Google Analytics is recorded when a session is triggered on your site, such as when a user opens a single page and then immediately exits without triggering additional requests in that session.

A high bounce rate is bad for business. It often means that visitors didn’t find what they expected, or the page didn’t convince them to stick around. For a business, that translates to fewer leads, fewer conversions, and by extension, fewer sales.

How is bounce rate measured?

The bounce rate is calculated by dividing the number of visitors who bounced by the total number of visitors and multiplying that number by 100. If 1,000 visitors visited your website and 300 of those visitors bounced, then your bounce rate is 30 percent.

A website bounce rate is determined by the number of visitors who leave a website after visiting only one page (or not engaging with that page), while a webpage bounce rate is determined by the number of visitors who land on that particular page but don't engage with it or visit any other pages after that one.

You can use tools like Google Analytics, Matomo, or Plausible to measure your site's bounce rate.

How to lower your website bounce rate

1. Align the page with visitor expectations

High bounce rates don’t mean your webpages are performing poorly, but rather that there are opportunities to engage with your personas and facilitate more on-site interactions.

2. Optimize your page for search

The meta description for your webpage is a valuable tool to tell people what your webpage is all about. Your description should be written in a natural (non-spammy) way and compel the person searching to click. 

3. Create an enjoyable user experience

It’s important to make your website intuitive for visitors to navigate and find the information they’re looking for. 

Your navigation should clearly label each area of the website and should also be optimized for any screen. You don’t want visitors to leave your site simply because they couldn’t find the page they wanted.

5. Ensure that sour site loads quickly

Loading time is a critical measure for websites—the slower your website loads, the more likely visitors are to abandon your website. Nearly half of consumers expect a page to load in two seconds or less— and 40 percent of those consumers will leave your website if it takes more than two seconds to load. Furthermore, your search rankings in Google can benefit from a faster loading speed.

6. Check for spelling errors and typos

Common typos and spelling errors in your blog posts tell your visitors one thing: you don’t care enough about your content (or them) to proofread your post a couple times. This can and will most likely resolve in a higher bounce rate. It also reduces your credibility and is simply unprofessional.

Summary

Hopefully, these tips on how to reduce bounce rate on your site were helpful. If you made it this far, we’ve done our part on reducing our own bounce rate. 😉 Now it’s your turn. Which ones will you be implementing on your site today?