21 Easy Ways to Reduce Bounce Rate and Increase Rankings[Big Guide]

August 4, 2019

Author: Himanshu Klk

Bounce rate is killing the hard work you did on your website/blog.

Right?

And you must be in pain and always thinking that how can I reduce bounce rate.

Well, that’s why I came in action to help you and kick out the high bounce rate.

I’m sure you have very less time then let’s kick it out.

What is Bounce Rate?

Bounce rate is a measurable term and it measures the percentage of visitors leaves your website without clicking on any other link.

For example– A person visited your website’s blog post "How to Do Proper SEO" and he read the article but didn’t visit any second blog post.

And it is a very bad sign for your website to search engines.

Search engines think that your content is boring and readers are not getting what they are looking for.

Increase in bounce rate can drop your website rankings. So, you should know methods to reduce bounce rate.

What is Good, Average and Bad Bounce Rate?

According to a test, the results came out about bounce rate:

Source: rocketfuel

The Perfect bounce rate = 26-40%

The average bounce rate = 41-55%

More than Average bounce rate = 56-70%

Websites have a bounce rate between 56-70% is good. There is no danger alarm, they are doing good work.

Bad Bounce Rate = above 70%

Websites have above 70% bounce rate need to be alert and have to do hard work.

What is Exit Rate?

The more exit rate the more increase in rankings in search engines.

it is opposite to bounce rate.

Exit rate measures the percentage of visitors who leaves your website after reading multiple blog posts.

It is like engagement.

How to Reduce Bounce Rate: Easy 20 Steps to Take

If you want to see the average bounce rate of your niche.

Then follow my footprints:

Go to Google Analytics?Audience?Channels?Benchmarking

Here you will see a line which compares your website bounce rate to the other website of your niche.

Note: But don’t forget to choose your niche below "Industry Vertical":

After selecting your niche then select "Bounce Rate" from the drop-down menu:

Then "Benchmark Bounce Rate" from the drop-down menu. It will take you to the other websites in your niche for comparison of bounce rate.

This is the place where you will see the comparison.

For example- A website bounce rate was 76% and the average bounce rate of that niche was 57.89%-

It simply means that this website is not performing good and they have to reduce the bounce rate because they have a bad bounce rate.

1. Use Interlinking Strategy

Interlinking is a perfect technique to reduce the bounce rate because it keeps users to stick around your website.

Interlinking helps you to get your more blog posts read by visitors.

Interlinking is a kind "spider web" which keeps the visitors to stay on your website for a longer time.

It also helps your content to rank quickly on search engines.

What…? But How?

For example- If you a blog post about "SEO" and another post about "SEO Tools" then you interlink both of them.

And if you want you "SEO" post to rank higher in search engines then interlink it with as many as you can.

Google will crawl "SEO" post again and again and find that this post is very informative and it is repeating again and again and people are reading it too.

Note: Link to relevant content only.

2. Play Smartly with CTA(call-to-action)

Many bloggers don’t know the awesome ways to use the CTA buttons to increase conversions or time on the website.

And due to that, they lose a lot of opportunities.

After reading your blog post then most of the readers leave your website.

But if I tell you an awesome way to convert them into your sales or newsletter.

Here the deal…

Put some amazing and attractive offers on your site.

So, after reading your post then they can get something more on your website.

For example- I give a FREE ebook to my readers about "Affiliate Marketing" at the right sidebar of my website:-

3. Increase Website Page Load Speed

According to a study, 40% of users jump off a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load.

Mobile users are crueller for website founders because 53% of readers jump off the website due to low website speed.

And now, in 2019 Google is giving more preference to the mobile devices.

So, you should be ready for this challenge because more people are going to use mobile phones.

You have to make your website fast. So, people don’t jump off your website.

But how can I do, I have no idea?

Great news for you…

I have an awesome method to increase page load speed with easy tactics.

Increase your website speed and reduce bounce rate.

4. Attractive Featured Images

You already know that people are very busy and you have to do something crazy to catch their attention.

Even the writers with great writing skills are facing high bounce rate issue and are not able to catch people attention.

If you really want to reduce bounce rate then you have to catch their attention.

You should use very attractive "Featured Image" which have the potential to attract the audience.

Here is an example-

You can create these kinds of killer images with the help of these:

pexels
pixabay

5. Insert Table of Contents

Writing long content is interesting but reading long content might be a little boring.

First readers scroll down to see the length of the content and if they find it super long then they bounce back.

So, to keep them on your website you should insert the table of contents.

With the table of contents, they can click and read whatever the points they like to read and this keeps them for longer.

How the table of content looks like?

This is from my website blog post.

Whenever you will visit my website then you will get this on the top.

You can scroll-up on this article which you are reading right now and you will find "Table of Contents".

Which Plugin do I use?

The best plugin which all pro-bloggers use and I use also is "Easy Table of Contents":

6. Use Exit Pop-ups

People read your content and leave your website and they never come back.

But what if I say that I have an amazing trick to keep them coming back to your website?

This amazing technique is called "exit pop-up".

Have you noticed that when you are on a website and as you scroll up to the page(tend to exit the page) then suddenly a pop-up comes and ask to fill your "email" and "name"?

It looks like this:

This thing is amazing to reduce your bounce rate.

And with it, you can convert the one-time reader into subscriber or Customer.

And you can do it with Free.

You can use a free plugin called "poptin"

7. Embed Blog Posts in Sidebar

This is another smart way to have the readers for longer on your website.

You must include internal links in blog posts and you can also embed them in the sidebar.

Yes…

Embed your blog posts links in the sidebar.

Here is an example:

When people will be reading the content then they might find the sidebar posts interesting and click on them.

By doing that they spend more time on your website and this will decrease the bounce rate.

8. Enable Search Feature

It is also good as internal links which helps people to spend more time on the website.

You should create your website like this that people find it easy to use.

The easier your website to navigate the more time people will spend on your website.

So, I mean you should place a "Search box" on your website:

I have a search bar on my website which helps readers to navigate my website easily.

They can search for blog posts by this search bar and read those posts without spending a lot of time.

And it really helps me to reduce the bounce rate of my website.

9. Use Heatmap

You must have placed some important stuff on a website which people can use.

It can be- Paid Course, Free ebook or Any Important Blog post link.

But are you sure that people are seeing that thing?

What do you mean?

Suppose you have placed a special blog post link on your homepage at the bottom.

So that you can get more viewers on that post.

There may be many reasons for that but what if they are not reaching to the bottom of your website.

If they are not reaching to the bottom then you can’t get more pageviews of that post.

So, to avoid that you can use heatmap on your website.

Heatmap will show the areas where people look.

If a place is seen a lot then heatmap will show "red" and if that place is seen very less often then it will show "blue".

So, place the items or blog posts link where the colour is "Red":-

You can use hotjar and crazy egg to generate a heatmap of your website.

10. Use Social Sharing Buttons

Many times users bounce from your website just to share your content on social media with their followers.

They copy the URL of the content and paste it and share it on social media.

You should know the solution for this.

Don’t worry!

I will tell you the easy formula to solve it.

Use social media sharing buttons on your website.

So, whenever they want to share the content then they don’t need to bounce off, they can simply click on the button and share it.

Here how it looks like:

There are many plugins which you can use.

Here are the best plugins which you can use:

sumo
social warfare

11. Improve Readability

Your website content is your body blood. Without blood your body is nothing.

Same without interesting content your website is dead.

So, whatever the situations your content need to be so much interesting that readers can’t hold them to read your content.

You should use the correct font size, leave white spaces, images and videos to make the content engaging.

You can see how I write my content and my paragraphs are short:

Write as much as simple language, don’t use difficult words and phrases.

You can click here to learn how to write a blog post which people love to read.

12. Use Google Analytics

You can use Google Analytics to track your website pages.

Sometimes, 2 or 3 pages of your website have the most bounce rate.

So, you have to reduce the bounce rate of those pages to see the maximum results.

But how can I reduce bounce rate through Google Analytics?

Well, it is very easy, you just follow my footprints:

Go to Dashboard?Behaviour?Site Content?All Pages:

You can see the bounce rate of all the pages and then see which page has a high bounce rate then optimized that page and then you will see the reduction in bounce rate.