Techssocial | A wide variety of factors affects how well your website ranks in search engine results. Ultimately, the goal of any search engine is to serve up results that its users will be happy with. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that user experience plays a huge role in rankings. User experience, however, is a complicated matter. Search engines measure it through several different quantifiable metrics. One of the biggest is how users interact with a website – whether they stay on your page, how long, and what they do while there. If most users who visit your website leave immediately, that’s a bad sign, and it can negatively affect your ranking. So, it’s in your best interest to reduce the bounce rate and increase page views. But how can you do that in WordPress?
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Bounce rates and page views – what are they?
When talking about ways to increase your website’s visibility in search results, promote your content, or grow your business online, we typically focus on ways to increase traffic. But attracting people to your website is only the first step – you also want to keep them there. Bounce rates and page views are two metrics that measure your success in this area.
When a user follows a link to your website (from a search engine result, your social media, or another website), they land on a specific page. If they never interact further with your website, their session counts as a bounce. Therefore, the bounce rate of your website is the share of such single-page sessions among your total visits. On the other hand, page views are the total number of times a page has been viewed, including repeated hits from the same user. You want your bounce rates low, and your page views high.
How will you know that you need to reduce bounce rate and increase page views?
Generally, the lower your bounce rate – the better. But you’ll never be able to completely get rid of single-page sessions. So, the question is: how high is too high? The answer depends on the type of website you’re running. A typical (and acceptable) bounce rate might be:
- 20-45% for eCommerce websites
- 25-55% for B2B websites
- 30-55% for lead generation websites
- 35-60% for content websites
- 60-90% for landing pages
- 65-90% for blogs and portals
What can you do to reduce bounce rate and increase page views in WordPress?
If you notice that your bounce rates are getting too high and your page views are low, it’s time to do something about it. Luckily, there are a few simple things you can do that will have a considerable impact.
Start by optimizing your traffic and content
Content optimization is pretty much a must these days. Optimized high-quality content is how you improve your visibility, attract more traffic, and even improve conversion rates. But it only works if you match the right content with the right audience. For this, you need to make your niche very clear. If you’re running a blog about traveling through Europe, for example, you should be optimizing specifically for keywords that relate to European tourism. Otherwise, someone planning a road trip through the United States might open a page you wrote using a more generic keyword, realize your content is not meant for them, and immediately leave, increasing your bounce rate in the process.
Caption: It’s essential to attract the right audience for your content.
Alt-tag: A group of young men on their laptops.
Speed up your WP website
One of the main reasons people bounce is a slow-loading website. Users do not have the patience to wait for your pages to load – they want to access your content within seconds. Therefore, this should be one of the first things you check when you notice high bounce rates. Try using a caching plugin, optimizing your images, and employing lazy loading to increase your page speed.
Make your website easy to navigate
Your users won’t visit other pages if they can’t find them. Structure your website logically and provide plenty of navigational menus and tools, including sidebars, search bars, and crumbs. A user should never be more than three clicks away from a page. It is impossible to overstate the importance of a well-structured website – it won’t just affect bounce rates and page views but also improve the overall user experience.
Employ good linking practices
An excellent way to encourage people to visit other pages on your website is to guide them toward content related to what they’re already viewing. You can do this by employing internal linking. Good internal linking practices are often overlooked when essential SEO tips are in question. Yet, they are incredibly important and can significantly affect your page views. Start by always linking relevant content – posts and pages about similar topics you are proud to show off. Use good anchors – words and phrases that clearly state what the linked content is about and entice users to follow the link. Finally, remember to use internal links in moderation. It’s good to have a few of them, but don’t go overboard.
When it comes to external linking, focus on websites with authority that are not your direct competition. Make sure they are relevant to the topic you’re covering. Most importantly, make sure external links open in a new tab. That way, you won’t accidentally increase your bounce rate by directing users away from your page.
Optimize for mobile
Roughly half of all internet traffic comes from mobile devices, and that number is steadily rising. So, your website must look and function well on mobile browsers. If users can’t properly access your content from a mobile device, they’ll leave. You don’t want that.
Caption: Remember that most of your visitors use their phones or tablets.
Alt-tag: A person holding a mobile phone.
Make your content more accessible
Not everyone finds it equally easy to access content on the internet. A not-insignificant portion of your audience will be people with some kind of disability or at least facing a situational obstacle. These may be people with visual or hearing impairments, neurological or cognitive conditions, motor disabilities, or users trying to access the website on a poor internet connection. It is vital to make your content accessible to everyone, including these users.
Making your website more accessible will ensure that users with disabilities don’t bounce. But that’s just one of the reasons why web accessibility should always be a priority. Accessible websites tend to also be faster, easier to navigate and offer more appeal to all users regardless of ability and disability.
Why is it important to reduce bounce rate and increase page views in WordPress?
Although they are not the only metrics you should focus on, it is essential to reduce bounce rate and increase page views in WordPress because they affect your website ranks on Google. This goes on to affect your visibility and ability to attract traffic. Furthermore, lower bounce rates typically lead to higher conversion rates because you have more time and more opportunities to convert users when they view multiple pages. So, what have you got to lose?
Diane Spencer is a web administrator for WP Full Care. She has been building, maintaining, and running websites for more than a decade. During this time, she has come to believe that user experience is the determining factor in the success of any online endeavor, and improving it has become her primary focus in her work.