By definition, interaction shows that a visitor visits an additional page before leaving. It also shows that a visitor took trackable actions like making a purchase, clicking on a link, or filling out a form.
Simply put, bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who land on your website and leave without taking action or interacting. Your website is the backbone of your online presence, and visitors who bounce from your website will not convert.
Low conversion translates to low sales, and little profit – and that’s bad for business!
For clarity, a high bounce rate shows that a visitor’s overall session on your website is short, whilst a low bounce rate shows that the visitors spend good time on your website.
To get the most out of your website, you’ve got to increase the dwell time on your website, and reduce the bounce rate.
What is a good bounce rate?
There is no one-size fit all answer on what a ‘good’ bounce rate is. It all depends on your industry, the type of device your visitors are using, and the number you are comfortable with. Some marketers see a 70% bounce rate as awesome; others may not be appealed by such a figure.
Bounce rate shows if your visitors are glued to the content of your website. And most website managers double down on lowering the figure as much as they can. Some marketers believe that bounce rate influences ranking on search engine result pages (SERPs).
To get a good bounce rate, you’ve got to increase the dwell time on your website – and here is how to do just that.
How to increase the dwell time on your website
Before landing on your website, a visitor has to click on the link on the search result. The visitor will have to go through your website, and return to search engine result pages – this time is known as the dwell time.
Dwell time is the amount of time a visitor stays on your website, or landing page before returning to the search engine result page (SERPs).
Increasing your dwell time boils down to four things.
1. Good content
2. User experience
3. Internal linking
4. User engagement
Good content
Visitors land on your website in search of answers — and you can help them by producing good content. The quality and quantity of your content come to play when considering good content. For written content, you should aim for 2,000 words. Yes, quantity is of the essence. But if you neglect the quality of your content, your visitors will not stay long enough.
You can also double down on your visual content. To do that, you’ve got to embed more videos on your website. Short videos will work just fine — and you can make it juicier by inserting on-page videos that explain the text on the page.
User experience
Breaking your content with headings and subheadings is the basics. You can take it a step further by using bullets, short paragraphs, and lists. Yes, make them scannable and keep the load time below three seconds. Five seconds is okay, but anything more than that is not good.
Is your website compatible with multiple browsers? If no, you’ve got work to do. Finally, your website should be mobile-friendly. After all, a large chunk of web visitors uses mobile devices.
Internal linking
Internal linking is a sure way of making your visitors spend more time on your website. The links cannot be random — it has to be relevant to the piece of content your visitor is consuming. For long-form content, let’s say a 2,000-word blog post; use multiple internal links to increase the dwell time on your website.
User engagement
Encourage your visitors to comment on your content. It puts them in an active role and makes them stay longer on your website. If you believe that the comment section of a website is for trolls, perish that idea. It’s one of the best places to build a community of loyal fans.
One more thing…
Respond to users, and build a healthy relationship with them.
Conclusion – encourage your audience to stick around
Nowadays, a sleek website does not cut it. You’ve got to work on your bounce rate and increase dwell time on your website. To be on the right track, you’ve got to churn out good content, improve your user experience, and work on your internet linking. Boosting your user engagement is also a sure way to go.
Now you understand what bounce rate is, what strategies will you put in place to reduce it?
If you would like some help improving your website performance then please get in touch today.
