Bounce rate is one of
those quality metrics that are searched most in the search engines. People are
almost always talking about absolutes in terms of "How and what is the exact
method that will reduce your bounce rate," and so on.
I don’t subscribe to this
school of thought; bounce rates need to be looked at subjectively.
While there are some
general best practices, for the most part certain activities prescribed as
absolute can both hurt and help websites.
A high bounce rate can be
indicative of a number of things but usually falls into one of two categories:
1. You're acquiring the wrong kind of traffic
to your page(s), or
2. You're acquiring exactly the right kind of
traffic to your page(s).
Did number 2 throw you
for a loop? Most people forget about the second scenario, since most websites
tend to fall victim to the first.
But think about this for
a second: if a user comes into your site and finds exactly what they were
looking for; an answer to their question or solution to their problem, why
should they stay a moment longer or look around on other pages? Isn't it interesting?
Websites that are
excellent at solving information problems quickly often have high bounce rates,
for example here is a website that is designed to rank for question queries,
offering specific and succinct answers:
Users come in, get the
answers they need, and leave; but come back often.
Now the here's comes the
answer which is hang on the mind of millions of people. There are 20 tips listed below for you. Let's begin:-
1. You Should Probably
Avoid Pop-ups
2. Use Intuitive
Navigation for Important Items
Don’t make your visitors
feel dumb (or think you’re dumb) for not providing them with clear and obvious
paths to get the content they may be looking for.
The most common reaction
to not being able to find something that should be obvious is frustration – and
if you’ve ever been on a web page where you can’t figure out how or where to
navigate, this is exactly how you feel.
Heatmaps are a great way
to gain visibility into where user’s might be trying to click, giving you
insight into what should be clickable. A great tool for this
is Crazy Egg.
3. Poor Design is
Increasingly Less Tolerable
I’m not just talking
about gradients and drop shadows; design now transcends the whole user
experience. Your content needs to be attractive; both in terms of graphical
treatments and readability.
Design for your target
audience, which may not necessarily be the audience you already have, or at
least not the majority of it. Design has become a legitimacy signal and the lack thereof can directly
impact visitors (and prospects) perceptions of the quality of your business and
services.
4. Speed
This pretty much goes
without saying these days but nothing really effects bounce rate like having a
web page that takes 10 seconds to load.
5. Is Your Website Mobile
Usable
I realize that is far
from proper English, but I feel it makes my point. Being mobile friendly is
ideal, but being mobile usable is critical.
Websites can still be
effective as long as content can be accessed and used from a mobile device or
tablet.
Furthermore, mobile
usability does not necessarily mean from a design compatibility and
accessibility standpoint, in many cases it means is the language on your site
simple and clear enough that people on the go (on mobile devices) can still
make sense of what they need to do to find information and at the very least
contact you if necessary.
6. Design Information
Around Priorities
This comes back to the
last consideration, are your target conversion or content points clearly
presented on your pages? Can users immediately get a sense of what they should
expect to find or are expected to do while on the page?
Websites tends to have
two paths to conversion:
a. Landing pages (short direct sales path)
b. A conversion funnel (longer process of
qualifying visitors through a collection of pages that drive toward conversion)
Are you effectively
managing the expectations of your visitors? A good litmus test for this is if
you are able to trigger your primary page conversions more than 20 percent of
the time.
7. Segment Information
This is another
perspective on creating content that is designed to be digested and consumed.
Readability is important here but so is the idea of grouping content into
segments or categories – this is most often seen in blog posts where header
tags are used to break apart large walls of text.
8. Optimize For Intent
This is a more detailed
take on information design, and ensuring that based on the keywords your
visitors are using to get to your pages, you are serving them an experience
that address their expectations.
This is often talked
about in paid search and display advertising, where the highest bounce rates
are created from advertisers not closing the loop between the ad copy and the
landing page copy and design. The experience needs to be consistent from start
to finish or you risk breaking the user’s intent loop.
9. Be Mindful of Ad
Placement
This is still a bit of a
new idea (especially to advertisers) but if possible avoid the standard
ad units. Not only have web users developed ad blindness but
Google has also started
penalizing pages that have too many ad units above the fold,
and hint: they are looking for standard ad unit sizes.
10. Lazy Load Third Party
Content
Lazy loading, in case
you’re unfamiliar, is a design pattern process for deferring the loading of
objects until they are needed. Mashable is a fantastic example of this in action, notice
how their pages load almost instantly and then new content is loaded as it is
needed (as your scroll position advances toward those pixels).
This is done both for
speed and user experience, and can be specified programmatically on a component
by component basis.
11. Color Contrast
Readers need contrast.
Contrast between colors can make a dull story into an exciting one and
conversely can turn the most exciting content in the world into a palette of
indiscernible whites and grays if not given proper consideration.
Contrast is important to
consider as the web moves faster towards different mediums of content, with
more and more happening on the pages, it is important to use colors and
patterns to draw your reader's eyes toward the important parts of the page.
12. Messaging is Blatantly
Obvious
This is another
consideration when it comes to focus and attention. Remember you only have a
few seconds to translate value to a new visitor, so don’t make them guess.
Taglines are a great way
to quickly translate purpose, but if you don’t have one another simple way is
to place your site’s purpose in plain text in an obvious place (like the header
or the top of the sidebar). If you sell something, say that.
13. Cut Out Distractions
I wish I could say this
goes without saying, but I still run into website on a weekly basis that
autoplay audio and video. These are distractions and intrusions that
aren't expected and break the experience.
Cutting out distractions
not only leads to better bounce rates, but usually dramatically increases your
conversion rates.
14. Offer Related Content
Based on Personas
If you don’t offer
related content on your pages, or intuitive navigation (hopefully with some
sort of hook or teaser) then you're missing out on a substantial number of
pageviews and the opportunity to be more of a sticky resource.
Related content gets
really powerful when you're able to target it within the same categories or
tags, as these segments of content tend to be attractive to visitors who make
it through related posts in the same content stack.
15. Leverage Internal
Search
If you don't currently
offer search functionality on your website or if you don't regularly review
internal search analytics, then you're missing the boat. Web users have become
so used to search that it is an easy behavioral pattern to accommodate and
leverage for improved experience.
To take this a step
further, you can use newer tools for crowdsourced FAQs to literally create a content roadmap
for what matters most to your audience.
16. Open External Links
in New Windows
This is an incredibly
simple concept that is still often overlooked, but if you're going to link out
to a resource on your website, make sure you have it open a new window instead
of redirecting the user off your site.
The best (and easiest
way) to do this is to simply add target="_blank" into the link’s
<a> tag. So for example; <a
href="http://example.com" target="_blank">anchor
text</a>.
17. Prominently Display
Your Search Box
This is a separate
consideration from leverage internal search that has more to do with number 2
on this list; if you are going to offer helpful functionality like site search
on your website, don’t make users have to search for your search box.
18. Offer a Helpful 404
Page
Nobody likes to think of
instances where their website or pages may greet users with a 404 page, but
these things happen.
The best thing you can do
to turn a negative experience into a potentially positive one is a few things:
·
Use
Google’s suggestive snippet for creating useful 404 pages. Visit the "Enhance 404 pages"
section in Google Webmaster Tools, which allows you to generate a JavaScript
snippet.
·
Add
a search box and a link to the homepage
19. Keep it Readable
This isn't a duplicate of
number 3. In this consideration I'm talking specifically about your page’s
Flesch-Kincaid score, or the level of difficulty for comprehension of your
content.
There are two tests used
to determine both the ease of reading and the average grade-level required for
comprehension. Both of which have been baked into a very helpful
index calculator.
20. Split Up Long Posts
People have shorter attention spans than ever before. So when they
see long posts they are immediately reminded of times in high school trudging
through massive texts of traditional English literature.
Consider instead
splitting these up either into separate posts in a series or adding pagination
to break up the content into smaller and more digestible chunks. This New York Times piece does a fantastic job (with an absolutely
incredible story) of consolidating their story into chapters and breaking
up a substantial and engaging experience across several views and interactions.
Editor's note: This
column originally was published on January 18, 2013, and comes in at No. 6 on our
countdown of the 10 most read Search Engine Watch columns of 2013. As the clock
ticks down to 2014, we're celebrating the Best of 2013 by revisiting our most
popular columns, as determined by our readers. Enjoy and keep checking back!
