As the name suggests, bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who navigate away within seconds of landing on a new web page. To put it simply, the visitors do not interact with any element of the web page, nor do they visit another page from there, but they just leave the site. Therefore, the more bouncing visitors you have, the higher the bounce rate will be. But have you tried noticing what makes them bounce over and if it affects you’re ranking too?
The Cause and Effect of Increasing Bounce Rate
If you look at the ranking algorithms, you could clearly see how Google has been stressing UX in its different updates. As per Google, achieving a good SEO score is not enough to rank higher in SERPs, instead, it tells us to work equally on the UX signals too. UX here refers to the “User Experience”. That signals Google if a web page or a site is worth ranking above others, in terms of the value and experience it provides to its users.
Hence, a bounce rate is a UX signal that indicates Google of a good or poor user experience. Which later on affects your ranking in SERPs. So, to improve a poor UX, you must decrease the bounce rate to 50% at least. And here is how you do it.
Must Read: What is SEO and How does SEO Work? (A Complete Guide)
1) Page Load Time Affects Bounce Rate
Among the many factors that lead to an increase in bounce rate, page load time is a major issue found on most websites. In fact, in May 2021, Google introduced a new signal called “core web vitals.” Which let the site owners measure the speed at which their web page loads, become responsive, and achieve complete stability for user interaction.
Hence optimizing your page load time to 0-2 secs for both mobile and desktop will help visitors stay longer and engage better with your website. So why not check your page load speed?
2) Make Content Easy-To-Read
Content is another big reason why visitors wouldn’t stay on your website. It is a make-or-break so it needs to be perfect. As per the Google content updates, quantity does not matter. Even blogs that have lengthy posts experience a super high bounce rate.
So, it’s quality that matters. Your content should be such that improves the UX. It should provide value, be helpful, easy to read, well-formatted, and be written keeping in mind the target audience only. So that the visitors can relate better and dwell longer on your website.
3) Make It Mobile-Friendly
As a matter of fact, almost half of the global website traffic comes directly from mobile devices. Keeping this in mind, Google rewards websites that are mobile-friendly. Since the idea is to give a good UX, Google will rank those sites only that are fully optimized for mobiles as well. So, make sure your site is mobile-friendly so that you can restrict poor UX and maintain a lower bounce rate.
This blog discusses how poor user experience (UX) leads to a higher website bounce rate. Also, it tells the different root causes as well as their solutions to optimize your user experience. To name the root causes, there are actually many. But I’ve discussed three main causes that sort half of your problem right away. So speed up your load time, improve content readability and make your site mobile-friendly.
