10 steps to reduce your bounce rate.

Your marketing strategy is paying off and the traffic’s rolling in. But if visitors are hitting the back button before taking a good look around, those results will still struggle to make an impact on your bottom line and deliver a good ROI. And with the cost of users climbing, we need to make sure we’re maximising every visit.

When users opt for a quick exit instead of exploring your website, it usually means that something’s not quite working for your audience. So let’s take a quick look at bounce rate, what it means, and what actions you can take to bring it down.

What’s a bounce?

A bounce is when someone lands on your website but leaves without looking at any other pages. You can find the bounce rate for both your overall website and individual pages over on your Google Analytics Dashboard, where bounces are recorded as 0 seconds. This is because there’s no second click to determine how long they spent on that particular page. 

Not all bounces are bad. Contact pages, blog posts, and help pages naturally have high bounce rates since visitors will have found all the information they needed. So there’s always going to be some level of bouncing.

But if you’ve got an eCommerce store or you’re trying to generate leads, this could indicate a problem. 

What’s the average website bounce rate?

Bounce rates naturally vary between different industries, so to give you an idea of a good bounce rate, the average across all industries is 50%. This spikes to 65% for B2B and drops to 37% for energy, and could be anywhere between 20%–45% for eCommerce. This means that half of all website visitors are landing and hitting the back button, leaving you with a large amount of untapped revenue potential.

How to reduce bounce rate

A low bounce rate generally means more engagement and better results. That’s because the longer someone stays and explores, the higher your chances of turning that visitor into a customer. But how do you reduce bounce rate? 

There are loads of reasons why people might be bouncing, so here are ten common issues to look out for and how to fix them.

1. Optimise page load speed

Waiting is frustrating. With technology getting better and faster, we’ve all become increasingly impatient and expect everything to load instantaneously. So when a page takes longer than three seconds to load, the bounce rate is 4% higher than pages with a good loading speed and can result in -1.5% fewer page views.

And this doesn’t just impact bounce rates. B2C eCommerce sites with a load speed of 1 second can deliver up to 2.5x more conversions than a site that loads in 5 seconds, while B2B sites could see up to 3.5x more conversions.

Try using Google PageSpeed Insights to see how long it takes for your site to load. This will also give you some tailored recommendations on how to boost performance, which could include minimising script, reducing the number of plugins, and optimising media. You might also want to consider changing your hosting or using a caching plugin.

If you have a content-heavy website, then you might even need to use a content delivery network (CDN). This is a global network of servers that cache your content and then deliver it to users from the server closest to them for faster loading times and a better user experience.

2. Be mobile-first

With mobile traffic accounting for just over 62% of all global web traffic at the end of 2024, mobile devices are rewriting the handbook for web design. Simply being responsive is no longer enough, and your website needs to actually be designed specifically to work across a wide range of devices. If not, you could be missing out on loads of potential sales and leads as well as damaging your brand’s reputation. 

So, what does a mobile-friendly website look like? Easy tap buttons, Apple Pay, augmented reality, intuitive design for smaller screens, mobile-specific features, and skimmable content. Form fields should also trigger the appropriate keyboards, with number pads for phone numbers and text for names or addresses. 

3. Improve your internal linking

Internal links are great for SEO as they show web crawlers how all of your content is connected, improving the relevancy of various pages and your overall site structure. But they’re also great for reducing bounce rate by giving people a reason to stick around. 

By using well-placed links to other pages or products, you continue to guide people around your site and make it easy for them to keep exploring. If you’re adding links within chunks of text like a blog post, then use descriptive anchor text that makes it clear where you’re sending your visitors and why they should click.

This is a super simple yet effective strategy that both reduces bounce rate and helps improve your organic visibility in search results.

4. Match content to clicks

If someone’s clicked onto your website, it’s because they’re expecting certain information. So if you don’t deliver, they’ll bounce. This usually happens when the source of your traffic fails to align with your page, whether that’s an ad, metadata, or a social post. If any of these promise something that’s missing from the page they link to, then there’s going to be a discord between expectations and reality.

To reduce your bounce rate, start with your anchor text and metadata to make sure the descriptions accurately summarise the page content. This also applies to any paid ads where you need to keep your promise consistent with the page, especially when running promotions and offers, or when advertised products go out of stock. 

The key to meeting expectations is to regularly check your content and make sure you’re answering people’s questions. Ideally, this should be above the fold so that visitors know they’re in the right place, right away.

5. Target your ads

Another reason traffic from your ads might bounce is poorly targeted traffic. If your bounce rate is high for just one traffic channel, this suggests it might not be the page itself that’s the problem, but rather the ad.

In this case, it might be that you need to review your chosen platform or even create an entirely separate lead capture page tailored to that specific audience and campaign. By targeting your audience and their expectations more precisely, you increase the chances of your page being relevant to their needs and therefore converting instead of bouncing.

6. Build trust & credibility

If they’ve never dealt with your brand before, then first-time visitors are always going to be a little sceptical. That’s why it’s so important that your website instils a sense a trust and builds credibility whenever possible.

This all starts with your brand and web design. A clean, modern site with a strong, consistent brand will instantly look more credible than one that’s outdated or unsure about the message it’s trying to get across.

Once you’ve got that part down, get others to show that you’re a legitimate company with reviews, testimonials, or media features. User-generated content (UGC) is an especially powerful strategy in building trust, particularly when it comes to connecting with Gen Z. And if you have any professional accreditations, make their badges visible on your site.

7. Use imagery & video

Bespoke branded illustrations and animations are powerful brand storytelling tools that can instantly capture your audience’s attention. They help convey complex ideas in simple, easily digestible formats while breaking up text in a visually interesting way. This keeps visitors on your site longer, giving you more time to connect and engage with them. 

Instead of a static 2D image, showing products off in 3D or in action is also another great way of building confidence, as this gives users a better idea of what the item looks like or how it works. You could even take it further with augmented reality, showcasing products within the user’s own environment for a really immersive experience.

How-to videos are another great option, both providing easily digestible content and showcasing your expertise. These could even be used to create engaging social content that drives further traffic from more channels. 

Whatever format you choose, make sure you use high-quality media that’s optimised to load quickly. Otherwise, this could become the Achilles’ heel of your page’s loading speed.

8. Signpost their next steps

To give your content purpose and your users direction, every page needs a call to action (CTA). While it might seem obvious to you, people need to know exactly what you want from them and what their next step should be. Otherwise, they’ll probably do nothing.

Every page should have one clear CTA aligned with where your audience is in their journey, highlighting the benefit of taking action. This should be clearly displayed, possibly using A/B testing to find the most effective location. And that also applies to the design, trialling different sizes and colours to see which combination works best.

Remember, you need to take away the guesswork and make it as easy as possible for them to take action. 

9. Make it scannable

When it comes to reading web pages, people scan, skim, and skip. In fact, the average user will only read about 20% of your content. This means you’ll want to avoid overcrowding your pages, instead keeping things clean and easy to scan with minimal distraction.

Use short paragraphs and bullet points to avoid large chunks of text, along with subheadings that are bigger and bolder than the body copy to create a visible information hierarchy. White space is also an extremely important design aspect, as this gives each element room to breathe and stand out.

When your content is clear and easy to scan, you make it easy for people to find what they came for. This results in a better user experience with the potential for higher engagement.

10. Exit pop-ups

The last thing you can do to reduce bounce rate is to catch your visitors just before they leave. Use a smart popup to offer a discount or free download, and swap that bounce for a conversion or lead.

You can also use this as a great opportunity to gather actionable insights that remove any guesswork from your next steps. Use the exit pop-up as a survey to ask your visitor why they’re leaving. This is the only guaranteed way to find out exactly what the issue is, if there even is one.

Reduce your bounce rate with a killer website

There’s always going to be some level of bouncing, but if yours is especially high, then it’s probably worth looking into. Usually, all it takes is a few small tweaks to get your visitors to stay, explore, and take action.

Not sure where to start? We’re always happy to take a look, with a team of marketeers and web designers who’ll take a holistic approach to pinpointing the issue. If something’s not working, let’s fix it.