Content Marketing
What is Bounce Rate? How to Lower Website Bounce Rate With Quality Content
Concerned about high bounce rate numbers? Get insight on how to lower website bounce rates with proven content tips and strategies.
Users leave a website for countless reasons. The speed at which they leave or “bounce,” however, can have a ripple effect on everything from your search engine ranking to your ability to attract and retain future customers.
What exactly is bounce rate, though, and how can you use content to help you lower that number?
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at what bounce rate is, how to lower website bounce rate using quality content, and why bounce rate matters in the grand scheme of content marketing.
The bounce rate of a website is, simply put, the percentage of people who come to a given page and then leave without taking any other action, be it clicking a link, filling out a form or anything else. In other words, they “bounce” after having just visited a single page.
A high bounce rate on your website can mean several things:
The lower your bounce rate, the more relevant your site is to the user’s search and the more likely they are to stay on the page for longer, plus visit other pages.
If your pages have a high bounce rate, you’ve come to the right place. This article is brimming with suggestions on how to lower your bounce rate through quality content.
Of course, content is by no means the only thing you can improve to help lower website bounce rate, but it is a major factor.
With that being said, here are some steps and strategies you can take right now to attract and retain visitors and (hopefully!) turn them into customers.
First impressions (and getting into Google’s good E-E-A-T graces) are everything. Your headline is the first thing users see, and oftentimes, it’s what determines if they stay and continue reading.
Even after the headline has done the heavy lifting, it’s up to the next paragraph to hook them in and keep them involved.
According to a Time article, human attention spans last, on average, about 8 seconds (that’s shorter than a goldfish’s average attention span of 9 seconds). That means you’ve got to bring your very best to the headline.
Here’s how:
Choose clarity. Catchy headlines have their place, of course, but clarity wins every time. Make sure your readers know exactly what to expect from the headline itself.
Use the headline to communicate a solution or answer to a question your user might have. Look at the headline of this article as an example.
Here are a few more examples:
You can also sprinkle in words like “Unlock,” “Proven,” or “Exclusive” — just be sure not to overpromise! Trust and authenticity should be at the core of your content.
Most people will give your content a quick visual skim before they read it word for word. If they can’t quickly zero in on the value, they bounce.
That means it falls to you to make it easy for them to spot the value. On the surface, this means structuring your content to make ample use of headers and subheaders, as well as, bullet points and lists.
Making content skimmable also means keeping paragraphs short and sweet (remember, mobile users have limited screen space). A long paragraph could look like a wall of text on mobile.
One of the biggest contributors to a high bounce rate is a mismatch between what the user clicked and the page they landed on. That’s why, to lower a website’s bounce rate, your content has to align with search intent.
Examples:
Perhaps most importantly, don’t bury the lead. Give them immediate value and something they can use. Address the concern right away with a simple first step and then go deeper. If you’ve piqued the reader’s interest, the reader will naturally continue reading.
Visuals not only grab attention, they also break up the monotony of text. A good infographic can make complex facts and figures easier to understand.
It’s important, however, not to include images just for visual sake. Make sure the images you choose support your content, like charts, diagrams, or screenshots.
In many cases, videos can engage users even more than an illustration. It may be worth testing a video on your page to give the user key points.
Internal links are integral to content optimization. Not only are they helpful for SEO purposes, but they also encourage users to explore more of what you have to offer. This, in turn, can help you lower the website bounce rate by keeping users on your site longer.
Add internal links in a way that makes sense and flows naturally. That means linking to blog pages or product pages where it makes sense.
For long-term internal linking strategies, consider creating content hubs or pillars around specific topics, with links in between pages.
For example, if you’re creating content on the topic of organic gardening, the linking structure might look something like this:
These pages may also interlink between each other to create a more complete picture while making sure the content flows in a logical and structured way. Not only is this helpful for first-time site visitors, search engines love it too!
Page load time can affect website bounce rate. Faster loading time means users get the information they want even quicker, and every positive user experience is a win.
Make sure you’re optimizing your page load time with your web development team by:
Each one of these steps on its own may not seem like much, but together they can take a sizable bite out of your page load time, making for much happier users!
You might be surprised to learn just how many sites tend to bury their call-to-action (CTA) at the very end of an article when it could (and should) be liberally sprinkled at various points in between.
At the same time, you want the CTA to make sense in the broader context of things. Then, make sure that your CTA is clear and actionable. “Subscribe Today” or “Learn More” makes more sense than your standard old “Click Here.”
By keeping these points in mind, not only will you lower website bounce rate but you’ll also help your content gradually rank better in the search engines as well.
Always look for ways to make your pages and your content as valuable as possible while structuring them to be easy to navigate.
This may mean taking extra time to really understand user intent, but the effort is well worth it when it results in more readers, lower bounce rates, and improved conversions.
Get more insight on how to improve your content strategy:
