5 Reasons Your Website Can Have a High Bounce Rate and How to Fix It

No webmaster or business owner wants a high bounce rate. It is one of the most important metrics and when high, could have a huge negative effect on your business.

Your bounce rate determines the percentage of visitors that land on your website but then go elsewhere viewing none of your other pages. If high, this means that your visitors are, for whatever reason, leaving your website without checking it out further. It has not given them the answers, products, or services they were looking for.

So, what reasons could lead to a high bounce rate on your website? This article takes a look at the five most common.

1. Outdated Web Design
   A high bounce rate is usually attributed to the website in one way or another, and an outdated web design is just one of those factors. People like to see a website that looks regularly updated, is fresh, and has a beautiful design. Your website design also reflects your business, so if it looks tired, this makes your business look unprofessional or uninterested.

   

   The only solution is to redesign your website. You should do this every few years if you value your visitors. Website builders such as Editor X provide an affordable and efficient way to do this.

2. Your Site is Slow to Load
   Many visitors will bounce away from a web page if it takes more than a few seconds to load. Not only that, but site speed is something that Google factors into its ranking algorithm. The search engines want websites to provide a good user experience, so as slow loading sites do the opposite, they will rank lower than those that load fast.
   Finding the cause of slow loading web pages is not always easy but there are certainly things you can do to help. Tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights can help locate any issues, but aside from that, compressing images and reducing the number of scripts your website uses will make a difference.
3. Low-Quality Website Content
   You have done the hard part by attracting visitors to your site only for them to disappear once they see the quality of your content. This is a common reason for a high bounce rate on millions of websites. A user wants to visit your site and see content that addresses their needs.

   

   Try not to use too many in-your-face advertisements, or spam your website content with keywords. Instead, create valuable content that gives your visitors what they came looking for. Also, make sure the content is easy to read, error-free, and accurate. Poor writing not only turns customers away but also negatively affects your search engine ranking positions. Review all of your content to see if you can find ways to improve it.

4. Your Site is Not Optimised for Mobile Devices
   If you neglect your mobile visitors, they will go elsewhere. Website accessibility is different on mobile devices. While your site may load up on devices with smaller screens, it will not offer a user-friendly experience. The sizing is off, it might be difficult to click buttons or navigate your site, or users may experience zoom issues.
   We now use mobile devices more than computers to connect to the internet, so it makes sense that we would like to visit sites that give us the best user experience. To ensure your website is optimised for mobile devices, use an auto-responsive web design. This auto-responsive software detects the device visitors use and delivers your pages in the best possible fit.
5. Blank Pages or Technical Errors
   If your bounce rate increases dramatically in a brief space of time, this points to some kind of a technical error on your website. Most of the above reasons will cause an increase in bounce rate but blank pages or errors will cause your bounce rate to rise to exceptionally high levels.

   

   Maybe your page is not loading up at all or giving users a 404 message. If your site is quite small, this is easy to detect as you can just check the pages yourself. Just make sure you test the pages across multiple different devices and browsers. If your site is larger and has many pages, perhaps Google’s Search Console will provide a quicker alternative.

The Takeaway

If you want to improve conversions, and ultimately, your bottom line, your website needs a bounce rate as low as possible. Always look for ways to improve your bounce rate whether through the reasons above or by optimising your content and the overall user experience for visitors.

You could attribute a high bounce rate to many factors but the reasons we listed above will be the cause of most. If your bounce rate is high, go through the reasons above to see if you can locate the cause.

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