Before engaging in activities to reduce your bounce rate, you should study your web analytics to see where changes are most needed. That said, here are examples of effective ways to improve pages with a high bounce rate:
Analytics
One way to reduce bounce rate is to refine how the metric is being measured. Analytics software such as Google Analytics will count a visitor as a “bounce” even if the user spends a considerable amount of time on the page and interacts with items on the page, so long as that visitor leaves the site without viewing other pages.
A potential solution to this is to generate virtual pageviews in Google Analytics for relevant events and, in turn, create a more specific definition of bounce rate for your website. For example, if you have an interactive page and a visitor interacts with some element of the page, you can generate a virtual pageview in Google Analytics. This will allow you to track how many people engage with your page, and also prevent active viewers from being counted as bounces.
Looking at your analytics to identify the different traffic sources of users can be helpful to identify where your website’s bounce rate is most in need of improvement. For example, users coming from an organic search engine query may find your content very helpful and, in turn, have a lower bounce rate and higher conversion rate.
Content Strategy
If you want to increase the engagement level of visitors to your site, the most impactful action to take is to identify and highlight content that you think they will like (such as pages that receive the most traffic organically). Once you have identified this content using web analytics, you can design your website so that the most engaging content is prominently displayed above the fold. For example, if you run an e-commerce site, devoting prime real estate to your best-selling items is an effective strategy, as they are the most likely pieces of content to earn a click from a visitor and generate a higher conversion rate for that landing page. Where possible, all content should include titles, images and descriptions that drive CTR.
If a significant percentage of your traffic comes from returning visitors, another technique for reducing bounce rate is to keep your content fresh, ensuring that it is updated regularly. Repeat visitors will be more likely to engage with content that is new and timely, increasing engagement.
Website Design & Usability
In addition to displaying the most popular and relevant content, you can also make improvements to the website design and usability itself to make it more engaging for visitors. This might involve activities such as improving the quality of the graphics, using good color contrast and modifying the font size and spacing so text is more easily readable, and improving the calls to action on the page.
Your site should be designed so that users can find what they are looking for in as few clicks as possible. Offering a large search bar as well as a clear navigational structure can improve engagement, especially if your website offers a wide array of products or services. Navigation menus should have a clear hierarchical structure.
Using a responsive website design can also contribute to reducing bounce rate. With the increased percentage of visits from mobile devices, this is now more important than ever. Your webpage could display perfectly on a 1024×768 desktop, but look terrible on an iPhone 6S. Menus and images need to be formatted to respond to device and screen size. You should modify your pages to use templates that are responsive, robust and adaptive.
One important usability fix that can help reduce your bounce rate is page load time. Studies show that users are more likely to navigate away from a page if it takes more than a few seconds to load. There are a variety of testing tools that can diagnose page load time and help you troubleshoot this issue.
On a final usability note, removing pop-up ads and other data-heavy elements from your site can also reduce bounce rate. A/B testing different website improvement ideas is a good way to be confident that the changes you make positively impact your bounce rate.
Marketing
Comparing bounce rate by channel (i.e. organic, referral, direct, paid, social media) will help you see whether there are issues with your traffic sources, which could indicate a problem higher up the funnel.
If one channel has a higher bounce rate than others, it is worth examining your marketing campaigns or efforts for that channel. For example, if visitors coming to your site via display are bouncing at a higher rate, make sure your ads are relevant to the site content on the landing page you are sending them to. If you are not already doing so, you may need to create landing pages that are specific to campaign with clearly displayed call to actions in order to reduce the bounce rate.
In general, matching your highest search keywords to your content will help attract users to the content you have. If you target generic keywords that are popular just to get traffic, you won’t be able to convert that traffic as effectively.