A high website bounce rate is undeniably a bad thing. It means that just as quickly as people click on your website, they click off again. While that will naturally happen with any website, if it’s frequent, it shows that something is wrong with your website. It could be due to your slow loading times, or it may be more about the overall formatting. To get to the root cause, here are six reasons your website’s bounce rate is so high.
1: A Poorly Designed Homepage
The homepage is often the first thing users see when clicking on your site. A poorly designed homepage will quickly send users packing in search of something else – something you want to avoid at all costs. Check out your homepage again to see if anything stands out as poorly designed, whether that’s too-small font or images that don’t load properly. You can also check out some web design trends for inspiration on designing your perfect website homepage.
2: Your Website is Slow
Most people don’t have the time of day for slow websites. If your site takes too long to load, your bounce rate will be high. It’s as simple as that. There are a few factors that create slow loading times, such as too many ads, unoptimized images, and overhead in your database. Find out why yours is slow and fix it to reduce your bounce rate.
3: It isn’t Mobile Friendly
Did you know that most people browse the web with their mobile phones? If your website isn’t optimized for mobile, then you are missing out on a whole load of users. As soon as they click onto your site from their phone, they will be turned away by the poor formatting or wrong text size. So, to reduce your bounce rate, ensure your site runs just as well on mobile.
4: Too Many Pop-ups
Everybody knows that pop-ups are annoying. You might be tempted to include a couple on your website. Usually, one is fine, but any more than that will turn away many otherwise interested users. Limit your use of pop-ups to avoid this.
5: Your Content isn’t Engaging
Every website needs written content. The problem occurs when it isn’t engaging enough. Take a look at your website’s content – is it clear, concise, and engaging, or do you have an overload of text that doesn’t seem to make a clear point? If it’s the latter, that might be the reason for your high bounce rate.
6: No Calls to Action
If you find that people leave your website not too long after clicking on it, the reason might be your lack of calls to action. Calls to action are an important part of any website copy, as they guide the user toward taking action, whether that’s signing up for a subscription or checking out a new product. Try including some more and see how your bounce rate changes.
Addressing a high bounce rate isn’t always easy, especially if you don’t know why. These six reasons are some of the most common, so consider whether they are the root cause of yours.