7 ways to use web design to reduce your bounce rate
The goal of every brand is to attract audiences to visit their website, but that’s only the first step. Once users actually land on your pages or blog posts, you need to ensure that they have a reason to stay and interact with your site, and ultimately convert into customers. When your website’s visitors are actively engaged and interested in what you are offering, you have a higher chance of turning them into customers. Unfortunately, if users leave your website before taking action that can be a sign of poor web design. In order to prevent that from happening, we are taking a closer look at the many ways in which you use web design to reduce your bounce rate.
What are website bounce rates and how to reduce them?
Bounces occur when visitors leave soon after landing on one of your pages without taking any action. Those actions can be clicking on a link to open another page, filling out a form, or making a purchase in your store. Obviously, all of these actions are important for your business. If users leave before interacting with your site – that means that you have lost a potential lead. Lose enough leads this way and your business will suffer failure. To avoid this, we suggest that you contact a web design company New York and have them optimize your site to prevent that from happening. Of course, some users are going to leave your site without taking any action, but you should try to minimize those numbers.
You can monitor your website traffic to see where the users who are bouncing are coming from. This can give you more insight into where you should use web design to reduce your bounce rate. Google offers free analytics tools to monitor your traffic and to see how users are interacting with your pages. If you realize that the problem is localized to just a few pages on your site, what you need to do will be pretty obvious.
Here are 7 ways to use web design to reduce your bounce rate:
#1: Make your site visually appealing
A lot can be said about first impressions. Ultimately, you get just one chance to have your visitors fall in love with your website. Having a functional website is a must, but some web designers can get caught up in the technical aspects of a site. This can lead them to neglect how the final product looks. However, you also need to make sure that all of the elements of web design come together in a visually appealing way.
Unfortunately, if people arrive at an unappealing site, they might leave before giving it a second chance. That would be a shame since all of your other web design efforts will go to waste. To avoid such a scenario, you might want to consider consulting with experienced web designers.
#2: Ensure that your site has good navigation and design
Not only can you use clever design to make your site look appealing, but you can also use colors and shapes to make important UI elements stand out. Most importantly, the navigation on your website needs to be simple to use and intuitive.
Navigation menus need to be responsive on all the pages on your site. You can also implement accessibility features to make your website more welcoming to all users. Features like varied input methods can help users with disabilities navigate your site and thus reduce your bounce rate.
#3: Improve website speed
One of the main reasons why websites have high bounce rates is slow page loading times. If you force your users to wait a long time for pages to load, you can bet they will get frustrated and leave. Does it matter how optimized the rest of your site is if users left before it even loaded? You should also make sure that your site is fast and responsive on mobile devices. A large majority of online users will be accessing your site through their phones. You don’t want to alienate them with a laggy website that takes forever to load.
#4: Have a clear CTA
If you want users to perform an action on your website before they leave, you need to be crystal clear on what you want them to do. Use web design to reduce your bounce rate and improve your conversions by having a strong call to action. Make the message on your CTA come across as positive so that it entices the user to think about it. Your CTA button needs to be interesting and catchy. Place it in a visible area so that it isn’t obscured by navigation elements and other features.
#5: Optimize your content
Having your content properly structured can get users to stay on your site longer. Keep in mind that optimized content can also help with your SEO, and it will make your site friendlier for search engines. You can hire an NYC SEO consultant who has experience with optimizing both content and websites.
When optimizing content, one of your main goals should also be to maximize readability. Structure text into paragraphs marked with headings and subheadings. Include images that are interesting and relevant to the article. You can also include links to other important pages to make navigation across similar topics fast and easy.
#6: Test different versions of your site to reduce bounce rate
Some improvements to your site will be obvious. However, you might also have several ideas for certain areas of your website. You can have different versions of your site and perform A/B tests to see which designs get users to engage more. This technique is often used in marketing as well. Contact a professional New York digital marketing agency for help in designing alternate versions of your site. You can see which one has a lower bounce rate and then use that for all of your marketing purposes.
#7: Offer multiple forms of user engagement
Website visitors who interact with your site are more likely to fill out forms and make a purchase with your company. Hosting quality content and well-written articles are good for improving user engagement. However, you can also consider engaging visitors in other ways as well. Create video guides and tutorials and explain how your products are used. You can also have polls and questioners to inspire users to take part in active engagement.
Start working on reducing your bounce rate today!
If your website has high bounce rates, you need to see what is causing them and make changes to your site. In this article, we have gone over 7 ways to use web design to reduce your bounce rate. With a few simple tweaks, your website will be able to engage visitors and get them to stay around longer.