Are you facing a high bounce rate issue on your blog? This post helps reduce bounce rates with easy, simple steps. Most of the time, users will leave your site right away if the content doesn’t fit their needs, which will make your bounce rate go up. 

One of the most beautiful features comes from Google Analytics. Opening up to add traffic sources or flatten funnels, a new toggle called “Bounce rate” adds real-time bounce rates, so you can see how visitors interact with your pages and quickly pinpoint areas that need work.

What is the bounce rate?

The bounce rate could be one of the most important ways to judge how good your pages are. Here is the bounce rate’s SEO meaning, according to Wikipedia.

“Bounce rate” is an Internet marketing term used in web traffic analysis, and it represents the percentage of visitors who enter the site and then leave (“bounce“) rather than view other pages within the same site.

Does the bounce rate affect SEO in 2022? Some SEO professionals say a bounce rate of less than 30% is reasonable, but you have a problem with one of 60% or higher. 

In this article, I’ll try to point out the most important things you should work on if you want to keep your audience’s attention. 

There are still several optimizations. The goal here is to focus on what’s important and make sure you can reduce your bounce rate by a lot at the end of your reading.

Before I begin, I want to emphasize that the average recovery rates are not the same depending on your website, the page you analyze, and the sector you use.

Bounce Rate vs. Exit Rate

  • The bounce rate and the exit rate are often confused, but they’re not the same thing. A bounce rate is a measurement of how many people leave your site after visiting one page. An exit rate is a measurement of how many people leave your site after leaving it.
  • The exit rate tells you how many people leave your website after visiting a page from the beginning (or “cold”). A bounce rate is a measurement of how many visitors return to that same page again and again, before leaving for good on another site.

Both of these measurements are based on real information from users. The exit events are automatically recorded by Web Analytics using cookies or similar technologies (“exit tags”), and the bounce rate is found by counting how many visitors left through the same exit event (“new cookie”).

What is a Good Bounce Rate?

What is a good bounce rate in 2022? As a guide, here are some numbers that should be laid back (each website being a particular case):

  • For a merchant site: Between 40% and a 60% bounce rate on product sheets
  • For a blog or news site, about a 70% bounce rate

This figure can explain this figure for blogs because they confine many users from reading a single site page. 

This line will not count as a bounce rate for all visitors who have spent a minimum amount of time on a page on your blog or news site. 

All you have to do is copy the line in your analytics code and choose a value (in milliseconds) to set a minimum time visit. 

If a user spends over 20 seconds on a page with the above example, they will not include it in the bounce rate.

The industry average bounce rates in the percentage scale are

  • 80% + is very bad.
  • 70–80% are poor.
  • 50–70% is the average.
  • 30–50% is excellent.
  • 20% or below is likely a tracking error.

According to Google, “a bounce rate is a single-page session.” It means whenever the user enters your page, they do not interact with other elements like images, call-to-action-buttons, internal page browsing, etc.

It happened under the following conditions or events:

  • Returning to the search results
  • Closing the browser
  • Entering a new URL in the address bar
  • Following an outbound link
  • Staying inactive and timing out the session
  • Reading the entirety of a page but not doing any activity within the page and then leaving

If your bounce rate is too high or you plan to work on your content loyalty to benefit your users, create traffic, and convert more sales, this article is for you! For commercial sites, a drop in the number of people who leave right away means more money.

How To Calculate Your Bounce Rate?

What is the Average Bounce Rate for Websites? The best way to calculate your blog or website bounce rate is by using the following method.

Bounce Rate = Visits left after one page /total number of visits.

If your blog received 10,000 visits/month, out of which 5,000 bounced after visiting just one page, your bounce rate for that month would be 5,000 divided by 10,000, which equals 0.50 (or 50%).

It shows that

  • Lower bounce rate = Your blog is performing well
  • Higher bounce rate = Visitors are leaving your blog rushing (which is not good)

Here are a few important bounce rates.

  • E-commerce – 33.99%
  • Other – 41.13%
  • Branding – 43.28%
  • Product information – 33.03%
  • News/Media – 55.56%
  • Lead generation – 47.38%

The average bounce rate for display advertising is 3. Let’s talk about reasonable bounce rates for paid ads:

  •  The average bounce rate is 41-55%.
  • The best bounce rate is anything between 26% and 40%.
  • A bounce rate between 56-70% is estimated higher than average.
  • If your bounce rate is over 70%, this requires necessary action.

How to reduce the bounce rate on a WordPress blog?

A bounce rate is a metric used by webmasters and website owners to measure how often a visitor leaves their website after viewing it. By understanding the bounce rate of your website, you can improve your website’s design and see if there are any areas that can be improved to increase visitor engagement.

how to reduce bounce rate in wordpress site

If you are thinking about how to lower the bounce rate or how to decrease the bounce rate, Here are thirteen working, actionable tips for better bounce rate results on your WordPress site.

1. Clean Advertisements

If the user leaves the site immediately, what happens if an unwanted popup opens in the first place? Is it not annoying? So, if you have pop-up ads on your website, make sure they don’t get in the way of the user’s navigation!

This advertisement is too disturbing for the users. Whether it is a video, music, images, or unwanted animations, this is a bounce rate that soars!

You should also pay attention to the advertising displayed. Do not broadcast advertisers like sexual content, violence, or scams, which can divert the user’s interest. 

Ensure that your ads go well with the blog or website’s theme. Otherwise, the pages may look bold and disturb the user.

Try to arrange advertisements properly so they don’t confuse the visitor. The ads should be placed beside the content, and it is the right place to click on ads by visitors.

2. Good Page Design

There are thousands of WordPress themes available in the WordPress directory. On blogger.com, thousands of free blogger templates are available in various niches. 

The selection of a template or theme is the central part of your blog. There are a few points to remember before choosing the best WordPress theme. 

Top blogs have excellent, responsive, cool designs and are SEO-friendly. So try to design your blog attractively with more user-friendly options. 

Another important thing is that you should not use more graphics and colors. More graphics divert the visitor’s concentration from the content. So, make your blog’s design pleasant and straightforward.

Pro tip:

  • Use the GeneratePress WordPress theme for better loading times and a perfect user experience.
  • Most of the top blogs are already used.
  • It reached over two lakhs of active installation from the WordPress theme repo.
  • I am using and recommending this theme.

3. Page Load Time

Improve your page loading time. If your web page takes a long time to load, the user will skip your page immediately, i.e., go to another website/page. 

It is an essential criterion put forward by Google and Web professionals. 

There are many tools to test your site’s loading speed while providing you with total report points. Among them, these are the best tools to check your page loading speed:

If your site’s loading time is below 2 seconds, your site will have better bounce rates, which means the user will stay longer on your page.

4. Page Responsiveness

Page responsiveness, otherwise called mobile-friendliness, is another essential factor for your website’s bounce rate. Most bloggers ignore this point and ignore mobile-friendliness. 

Affected pages load differently on a computer screen and on a mobile phone. 

If your theme is not mobile-friendly, your webpage will take longer to load fully. Meanwhile, your audience may feel uncomfortable and leave your page immediately for another page. This way, your bounce rate may increase.

You can use mobile-friendly themes for your websites and make your audience feel comfortable on them. This way, your audience will stay longer on your page, and your bounce rate will reduce.

5. Good SEO Strategy

Even though you’ve positioned your website well on keywords with high traffic, why is your bounce rate so high? The answer is simple: your keywords are not suitable for your content.

  • Keyword stuffing is very harmful to your site.
  • Write articles readable and straightforward for a visitor, not for search engines. It automatically becomes a search engine-friendly article. Do not do keyword stuffing. If you follow this, Google will penalise your site. (If your site has already been penalised due to your content, see my Google Panda guide.)
  • Always use small examples to illustrate everything.
  • You can run any website with this small strategy.
  • Reducing the bounce rate helps you boost your conversion rate automatically.
  • You can use LSI keywords and related keywords in your content to capture maximum traffic on your website.
  • Write a summary of the content by using sound and target keywords. It is the most exciting part of the content.
  • Create relevant backlinks for the published articles.

6. Improve your Content with better readability

Write Interesting Articles with eye-catchy titles, readable Content, and Editorial Style.

Have clear and catchy titles, especially if you keep a blog or news website. 

On the Web, you need to go to the basics and provide the information they are looking for the surfer.

  • The most crucial factor is the size of the content.
  • Your article should be at least 700 words to rank on the first pages as per SEO. But also consider your audience. They are not ready to read a book that takes 2 to 3 hours to read.
  • Make your paragraphs smaller and add attractive images to make your audience not feel like reading a lengthy article.
  • Writing an excellent article for your blog readers becomes SEO-friendly automatically.

If you are running an eCommerce website, you must be careful that your users do not think your page is a call-to-action page. You can try the Surfer SEO tool.

Your content should be readable. If your content is readable, the user will spend more time on your blog.

The content should not have large chunks of text. Most company blogs have great content, but it is not excellent and readable.

You can check the content and site readability using this Free Readability test tool.

The result is that the user will jump from one blog to another, increasing the bounce rate and exit rate.

Your audience should feel your page is as natural as an informative page, which should ensure that the user does not leave your page until he is well motivated to buy your product.

Pro Tip: 

  •  Break your paragraphs into two to three lines.
  • Every section should not be over two sentences.
  • I should write every sentence, not over 20 words.
  • Use bullet points or numbers.
  • Use proper subheadings.
  • Keep the main keywords in Bold a few times.
  • Ask more questions to your readers. It helps you, two readers, for better engagement with your Content.
  • Write excellent and actionable conclusions at the end of your Content.

7. Use of Table of Contents

You might feel what a table of content will do to the bounce rate. But it is a straightforward trick that will allow your audience to stay longer on your website.

There are two advantages of using the table of contents on your pages.

  • The table of Content gives a good and attractive look to your blog and provides a good presence for your visitors
  • It helps your users to navigate lengthy Content from one place easily
  • It gives a professional look to your Content

In this way, after reading the content table, the user tries to know every side heading in the table of Content. Finally, the visitor spends more time reading all the Content from your blog.

Hence, the user stays long on your website, and your bounce rate will reduce.

Here are a few Tables of content plugins

8. Internal linking makes to visit other pages

It is an essential factor that makes your bounce rate low. If your audience visits two or three of your web pages, the Bounce rate is no longer considered. 

You can add internal links on the page your audience visited so that once the article is read, your audience will see the other page linked to this page. 

In this way, your audience will stay longer on your page and promote your other articles.

For sites like E-Commerce, this will also help cross-selling products from other pages by the audience.

Consider putting other pages to the pages you get more traffic on. In this way, you are using a will to stay as long as you wanted him to stay.

It would help if you also considered the links that allow users to visit other sites. It would help if you always made that links open in separate windows so that your page will be open in another window and your visitor stays longer on your page.

9. Consider your 404 pages.

Broken links may cause a lack of interest in your website for your audience. When your audience land on 404 pages, he will close the web page immediately and choose another carrier. 

A 404 error will be like a no way to go for a Potential user, and he will choose another way to find this. In this way, your website main gets a high Bounce rate. 

You should always redirect your 404 pages to other valuable pages or allow the user to search for helpful Content on your page website in the 404 pages. You can do this by adding a search bar on the error page.

Most responsive WordPress themes come with 404 pages for a lower bounce rate. If your theme does not have this feature, my complete guide is about 404 error pages.

10. Use Social sharing buttons

Most people who visit your pages will share their experiences with others. Once they find your Content beneficial for them, they feel to share your Content on social media. 

When they want to share your Content, they will copy your URL and move to social media.

It will share your Content there, but in this way, your page Bounce rate will change even if it is helpful for you.

Here, by integrating a social sharing plugin, you can display a bar of social media buttons that a user can use to share your Content easily on social media, increasing no Bounce rate.

You can also add social media buttons on the pages that move along the page when you scroll up and down. 

This way, the user need not search for social sharing buttons to share your Content.

If you do not have a social sharing feature in your blog, the social sharing plugins list is attached. I use the Social Warfare premium and Social Snap Premium versions in all my blogs. Fantastic plugins.

11. Related Posts And Popular Posts

It is an excellent option for bloggers. Using WordPress, use a Related Post plugin, which shows the old articles from your site below every article. If you use the Blogger.com platform for your blogging, you can use “Linkwithin” to show related posts. I am using the Elementor Pro plugin a few months back, and I am using the WP Show Posts Plugin to get this feature in my blogs.

Note: Most WordPress themes are coming with inbuilt Related posts widget coding.

  • On WordPress: Use the WP Show Posts plugin to use GeneratePress WordPress themes in your blogs.
  • On Blogger: In the Blogger platform, users can go simple Layout> Add a gadget> Choose “Popular Posts.”

12. Use easily Categorized Navigation

Adopt the full navigation of your site on your pages. Use a map of your website’s categories and subcategories in the side Bars or footers. 

After thoroughly reading your article, your audience may find other articles the visitors like to read. Still, only the related posts or the internal links may not be sufficient for his search. 

Keeping full navigation of your categories and posts, the user will easily find the article he wanted to read on your blog.

13. Use the site wide search feature.

Even though category navigation is beneficial, using a search bar in your blog is always essential. This way, your user can directly search for the article or the Content.

For WordPress and Blogger uses, this search facility is always provided in the theme itself, but you need to activate it. 

Once you activate this search bar on your website, your users will quickly search for the Content he wants on your website.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

  1. What is a good bounce rate?

    As per the statistics, the good bounce rate range should be 26 to 40% is excellent. Suppose it is between 41 and 55, roughly average. Between 56 and 70 is higher than an average. Of course, sometimes it is very different from website to website. More than 70% bounce rate is a very disappointing condition in most cases.

  2. Why is my bounce rate so high?

    It is a common issue for every blog. It depends on several factors like ads, images, popups, and cluttered UI. Foremost, make the user happy with the required Content. Visitors become so glad and engage with your Content more time. Simultaneously, your bounce rate will be reasonable.

  3. What is a good bounce rate for 2022?

    Of course, maintaining a reasonable bounce rate is essential for better SEO. IF you keep that value below 70%, it is exceptional. The optimal bounce rate in 2023should be between 26% to 70%.

  4. Does bounce rate affect Google ranking?

    In most of the conditions, Google uses Bounce Rate as one of the ranking factors. According to some industry studies, the bounce rate is closely correlated to first-page Google rankings.

  5. How is the bounce rate calculated?

    The bounce rate is calculated by dividing the number of visits by 100. It means that a website with 50,000 visitors has a percentage bounce rate, or your site, on average, has 36% of its visitors return. Some factors are also considered in calculating the close approximation for each website, such as the PHP version used and the number of existing section changes on the login screen (which can influence visitor behavior).

  6. What are the factors that influence the bounce rate?

    It is the most common (and completely incorrect) notion regarding lean sites. Information about WordPress plugins for increasing retention with Social Media Feeds to integrate social media feeds into your posts, pages, or categories. Don’t underestimate the role of automation tools such as Google Analytics or Seeder (beta version).

  7. Does Google care about the bounce rate?

    The bounce rate may not be so much, but the quality of content is what they care about. Google uses page views and time spent to rank its organic results and click-through rate (CTR) over bounce rates as a secondary measure for ranking websites. These two metrics are better indicators that indicate if your articles or related pages help users make quick decisions, such as location in search results and how long it will take them to browse your site from start to finish.

  8. Is a 2% bounce rate good?

    A 2% bounce rate is considered good, as it indicates that your website is receiving a high level of traffic. However, if your website is receiving a high level of traffic and is not converting, you may want to consider increasing your bounce rate.

  9. What does a bounce rate of 100% mean?

    The bounce rate is a metric used to measure the percentage of visits that either repeat visitors or new visitors—the higher the bounce rate, the lower the level of engagement with your website. Generally speaking, a bounce rate below 50% is considered good, while a rate above 70% is poor. It is important to keep your bounce rate as low as possible to improve your website’s overall traffic and engagement. There are many ways to improve your bounce rate, including increasing the quality of your content, optimizing your website for SEO, and creating engaging and interesting pages. Make sure to measure your progress and make the necessary changes to keep your website ranking well in search engines.

  10. How can I improve my bounce rate?

    A bounce rate is a metric used to measure the percentage of visits to a website that results in a user leaving the site without engaging with any content. It is an essential metric for website owners, as it can help determine the effectiveness of a website’s marketing efforts. There are a few things that you can do to improve your bounce rate. 
    a. First, make sure that your website is designed well and user-friendly. 
    b. Second, make sure that your website’s content is relevant and engaging. 
    c. Third, make sure that your website is optimized for mobile devices. 
    Finally, ensure that your website has effective search engine optimization (SEO).  These efforts will help improve your bounce rate and increase the likelihood that users will stay on your site for longer periods.

Final words on bounce rate control

In this blog, you learned about the importance of controlling the bounce rate, which is a metric that helps you measure how well your website is performing.

It’s an important metric because it tells you how many users are actually spending time on your website and whether or not they’re getting the information they were hoping for.

By understanding how your bounce rate is impacting your website’s performance, you can start taking steps to improve it. Keep reading for more insights on how to improve your bounce rate!

Remember that good content will always make your users stay longer on your websites. Make your content as readable as possible for your users and make it feel natural to your audience.

In this way, your audience will never leave your page without thoroughly reading your article.

I hope this article has helped you understand bounce rates and tricks to reduce a WordPress site’s bounce rate.

You do not leave this page immediately after reading it. I was hoping you could send me your feedback in the comments or even share your techniques to reduce your bounce rate!

Share these 13 simple ways to reduce bounce rate articles with your friends on social media.

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