8 Biggest Bounce Rate Contributors

A website’s “bounce rate” is the percentage of visitors who land on a page and then leave without taking any further action, like clicking a link or browsing to another page. High bounce rates are a common website woe, but the good news is, they’re fixable. In this post, we’ll explore what causes those pesky bounces and share some simple tips to keep visitors on your site.

Waiting for a webpage to fully load may have been the norm in 1995, but in this day and age, if a webpage doesn’t load instantly, your visitors aren’t going to wait. With so many web results to sift through in Google, your website needs to capture your visitor quickly or they’ll back out of your site and find another one.

Think about it. If you had opened this blog article and found it’s actually about the history of tax laws, you’d be a little disappointed right? If the information on your page doesn’t match the title (or what was searched for), your visitors are likely going to give up on you. Plus, Google will punish you for having bad SEO.

Over 55% of all web traffic is mobile, so it’s very likely the visitors clicking on your website from Google are doing so from their phone. If your website isn’t optimized to display properly on a mobile device, your visitor is going to get frustrated trying to view the website. This is why so many design agencies are switching to “mobile first” design and working their way up to desktop. It HAS to look good on a phone. Period.

A website’s user experience is all about how information is visually presented. Not only does it inform users, it guides them through the website and promotes them to take action. If your website’s design isn’t great, you’re not going to make a good impression on potential customers. Not that we’re biased, but this is our bread and butter so we put a lot of thought into designs and user experience for our clients.

Broken links, 404 pages, missing images… all these things can add up to a horrible user experience. Users loose trust in a website that has broken elements, so it’s important to keep your site up to date, relevant and functional at all times.

Neon colors, illegible fonts, tiny lettering… If your website is causing eyestrain, it’s likely going to cause bounces. Web typography is truly an art, and getting the right sizes, contrasts, ratios and font styles is essential for a good user experience. (Sorry MySpace.)

If visitors get to your site but are unsure what to actually do there, they’ll likely leave. Calls to action are crucial to move your user through your site and help them reach their end goal, whether that’s to make a purchase, schedule an appointment, sign up, buy tickets, or just be able to find all the information they’re looking for. Don’t forget the CTAs or your user will end up lost in no-man’s land.

Let’s talk for a second about “permission based conversation.” It’s our Golden Rule at 8bitstudio for building websites. Permission based conversation is when a website allows the user to decide when and how to access the website, and doesn’t force them to click on popups, ads or any other intrusive form of marketing.

Think of it as setting healthy boundaries, website style. If you overwhelm and inundate your user with constant popups, they won’t last long on your site. Always practice permission based conversation and let the user decide what they want to access and when.

Test some websites and see how they engage their users right off the bat, or what they’re doing that potentially makes you want to leave their site. Bounce rates can be scary for website managers, but with a little education and research, you can easily avoid losing traffic. It’s all about optimization and user experience. Being mindful of how your site presents is the best way to avoid bounces.