A website bounce rate refers to the percentage of its visitors that leave after viewing just one page.
Users that leave immediately after reaching the landing page don’t ever become loyal customers, clients, or subscribers, so it’s important for business owners to keep this percentage low. Read on to find out about six possible reasons for high bounce rates to get started learning how to resolve them.
1. Poor Design
A poorly designed landing page is one of the top reasons for high bounce rates. When visitors arrive at a new website, they expect to find a visually pleasing and on-brand color scheme, easy to read fonts, and carefully chosen images, not a cluttered mess filled with unwanted advertisements and broken links. The best way to improve site design is to work with a company like NetStride that can create a visually stunning and functional website that will make an excellent first impression and keep visitors on the site for long enough to entice them into the company’s sales funnel.
2. Expectation Mismatch
Visitors’ expectations will be different depending on how they found the page, so it’s important to keep them in mind when choosing landing pages, especially for paid advertisements. If they click on a link advertising a particular product or service but get routed to a generic homepage that doesn’t even mention what they were looking for, they won’t stick around to find the right page. They’ll leave.
3. Unclear Messaging
Visitors to a website aren’t going to leave their contact details if they don’t even know what product or service is being advertised or what message the site owner is trying to get across. Make sure the text, images, and videos are on-brand and offer a clear idea of what the company is about and keep it simple. Consumers will respond better if the landing page contains a clear call to action justified by helpful, easy-to-understand content.
4. Slow Loading Times
Today’s browsers don’t have the patience to wait on slow loading times, even for products or services they really need. Company or site owners only have a few seconds, at most, to convince people to stay on the page, so make sure it is optimized to ensure that it will load quickly every time. When in doubt, use a website speed test to calculate load times and hire a designer to make appropriate changes if they’re lagging.
5. Too Many Call-to-Actions
It’s essential to include a relevant call-to-action button on the landing page, but don’t go overboard. The call-to-action should encourage users to perform whatever action helps the site owner accomplish his or her intended objective. That could mean signing new users up for a free trial, collecting email addresses for further marketing campaigns, or filling out surveys. Choose one call-to-action to include on the page instead of many, though, because too many buttons will overwhelm users and reduce the chances that they’ll stick around.
6. Excessive Pop-Ups
Modern browsers don’t want to deal with endless pop-ups. Advertising on a website is fine, but don’t overdo it and try to embed ads instead of having them open in a new window.
The Bottom Line
High bounce rates can be incredibly frustrating. Resolving the issue requires figuring out what is driving so many users away. The easiest way to get started is to hire a developer that can help.
