When you’re working hard to improve your site’s search performance, lowering its high bounce rate should be one of your top goals. In general, the bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who come to your website but leave before you can convert them. It indicates that your strategy isn’t operating as it should. If your visitors have a poor user experience or are not attracting the proper people, you know something is wrong.
A poorly designed website might lead your company or brand to lose potential customers due to an unpleasant user experience. As a result, if you want your visitors to stay long enough to accomplish the things you want them to, it must be both appealing and engaging. We’ve compiled a list of the most efficient web design tips to lower your site’s bounce rate.
1. Keep Your Site Free of Clutter
Cluttered websites load slowly. If you want to lower your website bounce rate, maintain your site clutter-free. After all, we’ve all clicked away from a website because it didn’t load quickly enough. In general, your website should load in three seconds or less. Anything more than that will result in a high bounce rate. How can you declutter your website to improve load times? Begin with the following:
- Truncate image files. Images consume a significant amount of bandwidth. Optimize picture sizes for faster load times.
- Remove any extraneous plugins. Too many plugins will slow down your load speed.
- Remove any extraneous characters from your website’s code.
- Choose a reputable web server; you will receive what you paid for.
2. Use Visual Hierarchy Methods
If you want to improve your website design, you’ll need to employ visual hierarchy strategies. This entails ensuring that the most crucial aspects of your website are visually appealing. To create a visual hierarchy, use large text sizes, bold fonts, and brilliant colors. In addition, use clear visual signals to convey what is significant and what is not on your website.
3. Optimize Your Site For Conversions
The key to optimizing your site for conversions is to make things as simple for your visitors as possible. They should be able to click multiple times to get to the product page from the homepage. You want them to acquire the necessary information in as few clicks as possible. If there is any misunderstanding along the path, your potential client may be forced to leave your site and go to your competitor’s. Of course, that’s the last thing you want!
If you map out the user journey from your website homepage to the endpoint of your primary conversion goal, you’ll see a significant difference in your conversion rate. Consider testing it yourself and enlisting the assistance of coworkers or acquaintances.
4. Include Important Social Share Buttons
We live in a social society that is obsessed with sharing everything. Your website should have social share buttons for the most popular networks, such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. If you have a blog on your website, ensure each blog article has social sharing buttons.
Allow consumers to share content, products, or information without leaving your site. This increases brand loyalty and does not increase your bounce rate. As an added advantage, a share button may attract new users!
5. Use Effective Colors
Have you ever visited a website where the text was difficult to read or understand? That’s a site that could have made better use of color. After all, people can’t read or share what they can’t see.
Ensure your website’s text is a color that stands out against the background. There’s a reason why black text on white paper is used. You can experiment with color, but make sure the hues work well together. For example, the bright blue text on a colorful green background is unlikely to be aesthetically appealing. Stick to complementary hues and imagine what you want to see on a website you visit.
6. Embrace the whitespace
Overloading your visitors with visual information is not a good idea. Images are fantastic additions to any website, but too many will distract the visitor. Instead, make liberal use of whitespace to provide your visitors with a clearer perspective of your material.
Ad placement is also an essential factor to consider. Pop-up advertising is one of the most common causes of users leaving your website; therefore, avoid them at all costs. While including advertising for monetization is necessary, it’s also important not to overdo it — a limit of 2 to 3 ads that are well-spaced from each other is recommended.
7. Include A Frequently Asked Questions Page
You’ll be providing a lot of value to your visitors if you include a page dedicated to answering frequently asked questions about your company and its offers. If a customer has a burning question, the FAQ page is one of the first places they’ll look.
If your clients are still trying to discover answers, they may leave your website frustrated. That is why a FAQ page is recommended. However, maintain it up to date frequently, especially if new queries about your products or brand arise.
8. Your homepage should be attractive and engaging
You only have a few seconds to establish a good and lasting impression on your visitors, and it all begins with a visually appealing and engaging homepage. A solid rule of thumb is to keep the design of your site clean, appealing, and uncomplicated.
If you do so, you have the highest chance of capturing your visitor’s interest and motivating them to explore other site pages. In addition, a simple-designed homepage allows visitors to locate what they need quickly; if cluttered with too many design features, they will need help to browse your site and leave.
9. Include Testimonials, Feedback, Or Reviews
The most effective and quickest way to develop confidence in your brand is to include honest and genuine testimonials, feedback, or reviews from prior clients on your website.
According to Spiegel Data Center research, nearly 95% of online customers check reviews before making a purchase. So, remember to include testimonials and feedback on your pages to develop trust and convert visitors into paying customers. Also, make sure that they will be easy to find and navigate.
10. Make Your Site Responsive
This is something you’ve probably heard a million times. However, it is a web design best practice that is worth reiterating. This is because smart devices account for more than half of all global web traffic.
As a result, it is critical to design your website to be mobile-friendly and responsive. If you don’t, it will appear chaotic and cluttered when viewed on mobile devices. As a result, users are more likely to abandon your website due to poor user experience.
11. Upload Readable Content
Your website’s content should be useful, clear, and easy to grasp. Because readable language improves the look and feels of websites while making it easier for visitors to read and understand the content. This is undoubtedly true if the website is content-driven. Users will grasp the content better and be more likely to read it if it is organized in smaller chunks, bullet points, pictures, or video content.
12. Go with sans serif
Serif fonts, such as Times New Roman, contain little flourishes at the ends of their letters. Sans serif fonts, such as Helvetica and Arial, lack these flourishes. When it comes to website design, sans-serif fonts are frequently preferred because they are easier to read. In addition, serif fonts can be more decorative and exciting, but they should be used solely for headlines or branding.
To increase the readability of your website, the body text should always be sans serif. People will stay on your site longer if your material is easily read, increasing your time on site stats. Another of our finest web design advice is limiting your complete site to only two or three different typefaces. Too many diverse fonts can appear confusing, fragmented, or even haphazard.
13. Include a contact page
Many business owners cram their contact information into the website’s footer without giving it much thought. That’s a huge oversight! One of the most significant pages on your website is your contact page.
If a potential consumer has a query not answered on your website, they can contact you through the contact page. However, if people cannot quickly reach you from your website, they are more likely to visit a competitor’s website instead.
Ensure that your contact page is more than just a list of details or a contact form. You should use this page to explain to visitors why they should contact you and how you can help them. More importantly, include several contact information (physical, phone, and mail) to cater to all contact preferences.
14. Add a blog
This one is for you if you’re seeking further web design advice on what you should and should not put on your site. A blog is not required for all websites, but if you do not have one, you should consider getting one.
Not only do frequent blog articles improve your SEO prospects. However, they also provide a lot of value to your website visitors and can help you reduce your bounce rate.
Ensure your blog’s content is relevant to your target audience and of excellent quality. Frequent blog articles well received by your readers can instill trust in your brand and position you as a leader in your niche.
15. Use infographics
Visitors to websites are often overwhelmed by large blocks of content. So, what do you do when you have much information to present but need more space to do so? This is where infographics may help!
Organizing your website’s information into short and simple-to-create infographics helps keep your page practical and attractive. An engaging infographic can keep a visitor on your website while communicating the same information as several paragraphs that would otherwise have sent them away.
16. Use unique, eye-catching images
While white space is essential, having too many photos on a website can be distracting or overwhelming. You should spend some time improving the quality of the photographs on your website. Investing in high-quality product photography will be worthwhile in the long run.
Blurry or low-resolution images can come across as unprofessional and may cost you a key consumer. Don’t worry if you don’t have custom images. Stock photography has advanced significantly, and many modern free stock photographs are no longer as corny as they once were. Decorating your website with a few high-quality photographs is far superior to loading it with dozens of low-quality images.
17. Have a Strong Site-Search Solution
Many websites refrain from providing search feature boxes to offer the most relevant results. If you’ve never considered how site-search influences your site’s user experience, now is the time to do so.
If a user wants to look for a product or search for something, they should be able to do so directly from the current page. This is a handy feature that users can utilize to explore without leaving the page or site entirely.
18. Have a Relevant Call-to-Action (CTA)
A clear call to action should be visible to users on your website. Users should be able to find it within the first few seconds. A CTA allows your visitors to execute a range of actions. A CTA can be created using banners, advertisements, links, videos, and other media. You’ll receive a lot of bounces if your CTAs aren’t consistent with the next page on your website.
For example, you may have a CTA that states ‘Get Free Books,’ but visitors are routed to your website instead. As a result of such CTA buttons, your website’s bounce rate will rise. Ascertain that the landing page is pertinent to your offering.
Wrapping It Up
Your website’s design decisions, among other factors, can significantly impact your bounce rate. However, many other factors come into play when determining high bounce rates; therefore, it’s crucial to consider your content’s relevance and other technical concerns, such as broken links and misleading redirect sites.
Don’t be concerned if your bounce rate is high. With a little effort, you can reduce your bounce rate and persuade visitors to stay on your site longer. You may minimize your bounce rate and enhance your overall conversions by following the tips in this article. As a result, your SEO ranks will improve, and your earnings will rise.