Are viewers leaving your resource without using your services or buying goods? It’s because your bounce rate is higher than it actually should be. In this article, we’d like to reveal all features of the bounce rate describing what it presents itself, explain 13 reasons that may cause its high parameters, and give some tips how to reduce bounce rate.

What Is the Bounce Rate?

It’s known as the percent of users that leave your site after looking through only 1 page on it. Thus, the term ‘bounce’ serves as a single-page website session. It also covers situations when a user spends 30 minutes on one site page.

Therefore, what does a high bounce rate mean and why is it bad for your portal?

A high bounce rate is considered to be a relative term depending on your company’s aims and portal type on the whole. Too low bounce rates might also cause problems. For this reason, most Internet resources adhere to the rate between 26% and 70%. According to the study of RocketFuel, there’s the following bounce rate grading system:

•   25% and lower – something doesn’t work on your website;

•   26-40% ‒ excellent parameters;

•   41-55% ‒ bounce rate averages;

•   56-70% ‒ higher that it should be but might be normal in some cases depending on a website;

•   70% and higher – bad or something doesn’t work on your website.

You can find your bounce rate parameter in the overview table of Google Analytics. You can discover rates as for individual channels, so for behavior columns.

So, let’s turn to 13 reasons for a high bounce rate on your website and how to fix these problems

1. Too Slow to Load

Google has a new ranking algorithm focused on site speed. It wants to promote content that gives a pleasant experience to users, that’s why a slow-to-load page might cause some issues. According to the research, even one-second delay may result in a 7% decline in sales. Users want to obtain information as fast as possible; thus, Google worked out featured snippets.

Fixing site speed is a good method to improve marketing and SEO parameters. It means that every fix should provide a boost in speed. For this, use the following tools: 

•   Google PageSpeed reports and insights;

•   Pingdom;

•   GTmetrix.

Owing to them, you get necessary recommendations for your website: reduce scripts, leverage browser caching, or compress some images.

2. Disproportion in Page Contribution

If some pages of your resource contribute more to bounce rate, Google might find this difference. When your CTA landing pages meet requirements of your users and make them bounce after making an action, but your longer-form website pages dispose lower bounce rate, you do a great job.

However, if you want to confirm that it’s a normal bounce rate, open up Google Analytics and follow these steps: Behavior, Website Content, Landing Pages, and then set the filter by Bounce Rate. Remove pages you consider improper with the help of an advanced filter.

3. Self-Sufficient Content

Some website owners can boast of efficient content that gives necessary data or provides a user with a chance to receive the desired service in minutes. It’s a true dream! In order to determine your bounce rate and create content of this kind, you should analyze the following parameters: time spent on a page and an average duration of one session. They both are presented in Google Analytics.

Besides, you can carry out A/B or user experience testing. If your user spends about several minutes on the site page, it seems to be a good tendency for Google. So, it determines it as a highly relevant page for search query.

On the contrary, if a user spends less than 1 minute on your site, try to attract him by eye-catching blog titles. This parameter still might be considered as a properly optimized landing page where a CTA form with quick hits is presented.

4. Confusing Meta Description or Title Tag

Are you sure in your title tags or good meta descriptions? If not, users might use your service thinking about one topic but seeing something different. No matter what was the reason for this, it’s rather simple to fix. Review your page content and adjust all the necessary tags properly.

By the way, you can check which meta descriptions were generated by Google for your website. In some cases, they become worse; spend some time to remedy them.

5. Technical Error

When users spend less than several seconds on your page and your website average bounce rate is high, it’s most likely that this page is blank or has 404 errors. In order to fix it, repeat users’ experience by looking at the most popular device and browser configurations. Also, one might check Search Console and Coverage to discover this problem.

6. Affiliates

Affiliate resources send users from one site to the merchant’s portal. Everything is okay if the page disposes a high bounce rate. Besides, it’s common for single-page resources like landing pages as there’s no place to go further.

A good tip here is to adjust bounce rate to the goals of your company. For instance, single-page applications might be presented as parts of different pages. It will assist in reflecting user experience and adjusting the parameters correctly.

7. Bad Links from Other Websites

You can make all efforts to normalize your bounce rate, but it still might be high because of referral traffic. Referring websites may send unqualified viewers whereas anchor contexts might be misleading. The reasons for this lie in sloppy texts sometimes. A publisher might copy the wrong part of some link or mess it up. Thus, we recommend checking and updating all content and links timely.

Besides, some referring sites may sabotage your resource with negative SEO. Contact site owners to solve this problem. Such an idea as disavowing won’t tackle it completely, but Google will still see that the link is changed and improved.

8. Content Isn’t Optimized or Is Bad

Visitors might leave your site since the content is neither worthy nor persuasive. Review it yourself or turn to pros in copywriting or content marketing. Another situation is when your content is good, but you haven’t optimized it for your audience or online reading in general.

Answer the following questions to gain understanding of this issue:

•   Do you have simple sentences?

•   Have you enough header tags?

•   Have you added images to make the text pleasant for eyes?

•   Do you provide answers to all questions?

Web writing differs from offline publications or academic writing. Take it into account while filling your site with content or ordering texts from freelance copywriters.

9. Not Mobile-Friendly Interface

Almost all site owners and ordinary users know that a mobile-friendly interface is of high importance. In fact, this rule isn’t always followed. According to stats, more than a quarter of all top sites weren’t mobile-friendly in 2018. It supposes that resources without this feature aren’t optimized for mobile gadgets. As a result, data and pages might move below-the-fold and cause problems with getting services or using them on the whole. It also leads to long loading processes and so increases bounce rate.

Therefore, test your website on a mobile device to check how all pages are opened and reduce bounce rates to the number needed. For this, use Search Console or Lighthouse.

10. Bad UX

How many pop-up surveys or ads do you have at your resource? They might seem annoying and even bombarding for users. Google always strives to enhance user experience; therefore, site navigation is extremely important. What if your blog misses menu items or a search box? Make sure that you don’t have these stupid design errors or mistakes.

11. Content Depth

Owing to knowledge panels and featured snippets, Google might provide users with quick answers. So, you are able to give deep and interesting content that will fit its requirements. Make certain that your content is attractive and eye-catchy. By providing relevant links, you force them to stay on your website. As most users are keen on fast replies, present a short summary at the top.

12. Unstable Google Analytics

If you’re not so good at Google Analytics and optimization processes, it’s worthy to turn to true experts in this sphere. They will implement everything properly and add tracking codes that will work.

13. Too Many Questions

Don’t ask too much. Questions about credit card numbers, grandfather’s pension, or social security are inappropriate. A user won’t entrust these data to you, and he mustn’t do it. He understands that the web is full of scam websites that look suspicious, don’t look this way. Users might regard your questions as the reason for leaving your resource.

The task of a content creator or a webmaster is to win the audience’s confidence and increase its satisfaction. As a consequence, your bounce rate will decrease. As your users like it, Google will appreciate it as well.

Don’t Be in Panic

A high bounce rate doesn’t presume that you should stop promoting your site. It’s just a measure so that you could perform your website properly and tackle all nuances with metrics.

What is an average bounce rate? It depends on various parameters; so, don’t fix it without all aspects that should be considered. While some websites require medium parameters, others feel need in rather high rates. Examine this question properly and discover the problem in your particular case. After it, make corrections if necessary and always think of your users – these are they who are interested in your website. Try to satisfy them with your services, and then your bounce rate will normalize.