13 Reasons That Website Could Create High Bounce Rate

Are your visitors leaving your website? Find out 13 reasons why this could happen and five ways to reduce your high bounce rate.

This question is asked every day on Reddit or Twitter.

This makes online marketers' shoulders tenser and analysts frown with concern.

Your analytics are so clear that you can see the reason for such a high bounce rate.

What is a bounce rate?

Google defines a "bounce" (a one-page session) as a session that occurs on your website.

Even if a user is not actively using a page for longer than 30 minutes, this can happen.

Too low or too high bounce rates can also cause problems.

According to Google, most websites will experience bounce rates between 26% and 70%.

• 25 or less: There is most likely a problem

• 26-40%: Excellent

• 41-55% Average

• 56-70% This is A little higher than the norm, but it could still make sense, depending on what website you are using.

• 70% and higher: Unstable or a problem

You can see the overall bounce rate of your site in the Audience Overview tab on Google Analytics.

Here are 13 reasons why your website may have a high bounce rate and how you can fix them.

1. Slow-to-Load page

Google is putting a renewed emphasis on site speed as part of its Core Web Vitals initiative.

Bounce rate can be affected by a slow loading page.

Site speed forms part of Google's algorithm for ranking.

Google is committed to promoting content that creates a positive user experience. They also recognize that slow sites can lead to poor user experience.

Google featured Snippets is designed to provide quick access to the facts for users who are looking for them.

Your visitors might leave if your page takes more than a few seconds for it to load.

Site speed can be a long-term journey for many SEO and marketing professionals.

The upside to this is that each incremental improvement should result in an incremental increase in speed.

Use tools such as:

• Google PageSpeed Insights.

• The Google Search Console PageSpeed reports.

• Reports on Lighthouses

• Pingdom.

• GTmetrix.

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2. Self-sufficient Content

Sometimes, your content is so efficient that people can get the information they need quickly and bounce back!

This can be wonderful.

Maybe you've realized your dream of being a content marketer and creating amazing content which completely consumed your life for a few minutes.

Perhaps you have a landing site that requires users to fill out a brief lead form.

To determine if high bounce rates are a problem, you can also perform user experience testing and A/B Testing.

Google will send a positive signal to Google if the user spends more than a few minutes on the page. This type of intent is essential if you wish to rank for a particular search query.

If the user spends less than one minute on the page (which could be the case with properly optimized landing pages that have a short-hit CTA form), you might consider inviting the reader to look at your related posts after they fill out the form.

3. A Few Pages Can Make a Disproportional Difference in Contribution

Expanding on the previous example, it is possible that there are pages on your website that contribute disproportionally in terms of the overall bounce rate.

You're likely to be able to satisfy user intent if your landing pages for CTAs are able to quickly get them to bounce after they take an action. However, if your longer-form content pages have lower bounce rates, then you should be fine.

You will need to look deeper to confirm this or find out if certain pages have a higher bounce rate that isn't causing users to abandon the site.

You might consider adding an advanced filter to get rid of pages that could skew your results.

It's not helpful, for example, to obsess over one Twitter share that has five visits and all your social UTM parameter added at the end of the URL.

My rule of thumb is that you should set a volume threshold that is sufficient to make the page worth reading.

Select what you think makes sense for your website, 100 visits or 1000 visits. Click on Advanced to filter for sessions greater than this.

4. Incorrect Title Tag and/or Meta Description

Ask yourself this question: Are your title tag, and meta description accurately summarizing the content of your webpage?

 Visitors may think your content is about one thing if they don't. This is, fortunately enough, easy to fix.

You can either review your page's content and make adjustments to the meta description and title tags, or you can rewrite it to address search queries that you wish to attract visitors.

Google can modify your meta description and, if necessary, you can take action to correct it.

5. Blank Page or Technical Error

If you have a high bounce rate and see people spending less time on your site, your page may be blank or return a 404.

Look at the page using your audience's most used browsers and device configurations (e.g. Safari on desktop, mobile, Chrome mobile, etc.). You can replicate their experience.

To see the issue from Google's point of view, you can also search in Search Console under Content

Talk to someone or fix the problem yourself - Google can quickly remove your page from search results.

6. Bad link from another website

It is possible to do everything right on your part and achieve a low bounce rate in organic search results but still get a high bounce from referral traffic.

The author or publisher linked to your website in an incorrect part of the copy or did not intend to link to it at all.

If the author is unable to update the article after publication, contact the editor or the webmaster.

Ask them politely to remove the link from your site or to update the context, whichever is more appropriate.

The referring site may try to undermine you using negative SEO techniques, either out of spite or just for fun.

Still, you should contact them and ask politely for their removal. However, if necessary, you can edit your disavow files in Search Console.

 While it won't lower your bounce rate or cause you to lose traffic, disavowing a link will tell Google that the site's URL is not being considered when determining the quality of your site.

7. Affiliate Landing Page or Single Page Site

Affiliates may have a page that redirects people from their site to the merchant's website.

These are good examples of how you can do the job well if your page has a higher bounce rate.

Similar scenarios could be found if your website has a single page, such as a landing page for your ebook or portfolio site.

 Adjust your bounce rate if you are interested to make it more relevant to your website's goals.

This will allow you to adjust the Bounce Rate to better reflect the user experience. Contact web design services in India to create a responsive website.

8. Low-Quality Content or Poorly Optimized Content

Your content may cause visitors to leave your site.

Have a hard look at your page. Then, have your friend or colleague take a critical and honest look at it.

This person should have a background in copywriting or content marketing.

You might have great content but not optimized for online reading or the target audience.

Are there many header tags that make it easy to scan?

• Is it able to answer all questions clearly?

• Images can be used to break up the copy and make it easier on the eyes.

To increase the time spend reading your content, you need to improve your online copywriting skills.

Another possibility is that your content isn't well written or isn't relevant to your audience.

Hire a freelance copywriter to help you transform your ideas into compelling content that converts.

9. Bad or offensive UX

Are you spamming people with pop-ups, ads, and subscribe buttons for email?

These CTA-heavy features may seem irresistible to sales and marketing teams, but too many can cause visitors to run for their lives.

They're also ranking factors and can affect user happiness.

Are your pages difficult to navigate? Learn the new trends.

Your visitors may be looking for more information, but the search box on your blog is not available or the menu items are too difficult to access from a smartphone.

Online marketers know their websites inside and out.

Check that you are not making these common design errors. Have a UX or web design services in India look at the site and let them know if there is anything they think might be problematic.

10. The Page is Not Mobile-Friendly

Although we all know that it is important to have a responsive website, this practice is not always observed in the real world.

Google's index will be mobile-only in the coming year.

However, a 2018 study showed that almost a quarter of top websites weren't mobile-friendly.

Websites not optimized for mobile are less attractive on mobile devices and don't load fast.

It's possible for a website to not be mobile-friendly even if it was built using responsive design principles.

Mobile users now see only your navigation menu, and not a headline matching what they searched for.

Test it on your smartphone if you notice a page that has a high bounce rate but no obvious issues.

Mobile issues can be checked in the Search Console or Lighthouse.

You can also do this in reverse - ensure your site is accessible in all formats and easy to navigate on desktop, tablet and mobile devices. Check out the latest web design principles

11. Wonky Google Analytics Setup

You may not have properly implemented Google Analytics or added tracking codes to all pages of your website.

Google explains how you can fix this here.

12. Content depth

Google provides quick answers via featured snippets or knowledge panels. You can also provide deep, interesting and interconnected content to help people get more information.

Your content should be compelling for people to click through.

Give them an incentive to stay by providing relevant, interesting internal links.

Provide a TL-DR summary at the end for those who want a quick solution.

13. Not Enough

Do not ask for someone's credit card number, social insurance, pension or children's names. Your user may not trust you.

Given the number of scam websites out there, people are open to suspicion.

Many people will leave the site when they are presented with large pop-ups asking for information.

Webmasters and content creators have the responsibility of building trust and learning the web development challenges with users. This will increase customer satisfaction and reduce bounce rates.

Conclusion

High bounce rates don't necessarily mean the end. High bounce rates are a hallmark of beautiful, well-designed websites. Although bounce rates are a measure of site performance, they can quickly become vanity metrics. 

Sometimes, you need a medium-to-high bounce rate. Don't try to fix bounce rates by slowing users down or preventing them from returning to your site. This makes users more frustrated and won't return again to your content. Even if it appears that the number is dropping, you'll have done a lot worse than a "bounce."

Find the best web development company in India to create a responsive website. With an affordable SEO service provider in India, you will have a proper positive impact on your business and get the ROI.

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