Looking for attention? This post outlines a few ways to decrease your site’s bounce rate by getting potential customers to stay on your site longer and learn more about you and your company.
To learn more, reach out to us – we’re waiting by the phone at 604.553.1081 or online at [email protected]
When we make websites for our clients at Ballistic Arts, we’re not just designing them to look pretty (although that doesn’t hurt). Our Vancouver design team includes user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) designers who work with our website designers and developers to make sure every inch of your website is put to good use! Check out some examples of the web design work Ballistic Arts does here.
Every function and feature of your website should encourage visitors to stay and get to know you, ultimately prompting them to become customers (A.K.A. money in your pocket!). If visitors aren’t staying to hang out on your site, your bounce rate will increase (and that’s a bad thing).
What’s a bounce rate?
Your site’s bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who click on a link to your site and then immediately leave after first page they see (bouncing right off your site – boing!). If your bounce rate is over 50%, that means the majority of visitors on your website are leaving before getting a full impression of you – and unfortunately, it’s probably because they didn’t see the information they were looking for, or your site didn’t capture their attention.
The lower your website’s bounce rate is, the more likely it is that your site will convert regular visitors to the kind of visitors you need: brand advocates and paying customers. You should aim for a bounce rate between 25-40% to achieve this. A low bounce rate is an indicator that your site is doing all the right things: it’s pretty, informative, and entertaining!
Here are 5 simple things we consider when optimizing websites and their content to decrease bounce rate:
1) Adjust the content layout on your site for readability
Big, lengthy chunks of text are so unappealing – I’m not surfing the web looking for dense, wordy content, and neither are your site visitors! Unless you’re writing an article, detailed blog post, or white paper, always say what you need to say in the fewest words possible.
If you need to write some longer content, break it up by:
- Conveying some content in the form of bulleted lists (see what I did there 😉)
- Using charts, graphs, or other visuals
- Inserting eye-catching (and relevant) pictures between paragraphs
- Breaking one webpage into two – split one dense page into two topics that can have their own separate, cleaner pages
For reference, take a look at the way our team laid out detailed content for easy reading on the BC Doctors of Optometry website.
2) Create clear calls to action!
What do you want visitors to your site to do? Don’t beat around the bush, just tell them! Calls To Action (CTAs) are absolutely necessary parts of every business’ webpage.
Do you want visitors to call you? Can you offer them a deal on a product or service? Do you have a form for them to fill out? Be up front and let them know with a quick CTA statement and the information they need – you’ll be surprised at how well this works.
CTAs often act as buttons visitors can click to access another page where they can complete the desired action. Popular CTAs that work include:
Learn More
Contact Us
Shop Now
Start Your Free Trial
Book a Free Consultation
Request a Quote
Our website for The Falls Golf Club includes several CTA buttons on the home page.
3) Be honest and genuine
In the age of the internet, everyone has a built-in bullsh*t radar. If you’re being dishonest or impersonal on your website, it will make visitors uneasy from the start. Scrap the academic language, figure out a friendly and accessible voice for your website content, and stick to it. Visitors to your site will be thankful to be reading something that sounds like it was written by a real human, not a robot.
It’s also important to keep some level of transparency on your site. If visitors can’t easily figure out who you are, exactly what services you offer, and what they can expect from working with you, they’ll be immediately skeptical. Don’t be afraid to show off the best parts of yourself and your team!
Check out BC Egg’s new website to see friendly, genuine transparency in action.
4) Put out fresh content often
Don’t just forget about your site once it’s live. If your last blog was in 2017 and your last tweet was before the newest iPhone came out, you’ve got some work to do. When someone visits your site, every part of your online presence is up for interrogation. Make sure the latest information about your company is available, and give the appearance that you update your website often.
Quick and frequent blog posts are one way to do this. You can also change the headlines or titles on different pages to include the year so potential clients know you’ve been active this year. If you only have pictures, testimonials, or projects from years ago on your website, visitors will question if you’re even still in business. Stay relevant with consistently fresh online content!
The site we made for Villa Cathay allows them to publish their own updates about upcoming events as well as the construction of their new centre!
5) Make what visitors want accessible
Think of the top 3 things visitors to your website are looking for. Contact info? A list of services? A picture of your dog? Now check and see if they can easily get to these things with just one click from your home page. If they can’t, you need to change that.
People go to business websites when they need something your business might provide. If they can’t get to what they need quickly, they’ll get impatient and bounce to a competitor’s site.
We made MFT National a website that funnels users quickly to where they want to go.
Conclusion
In this post, we’ve offered some great and easy ways for you to decrease your bounce rate. While there are many ways to do this from a designer or web developer standpoint, many of the things listed above are quick fixes you may be able to try out yourself. That being said, there are lots of other, more technical components to adjusting bounce rates, like user interface (UI), SEO, and branding. It’s a great idea to get a professional to check your bounce rate or give you their opinion on your website’s accessibility.
Want an expert opinion or audit of your website? Give us a call at 604.553.1081, or send us an email at [email protected].
