According to Google, Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. In short, it tells how many people who arrive at your website “bounce” out to another site. Keeping your bounce rate to it’s most minimal is important in making the most out of your new visitors.
Many people were confused with bounce rate. It is not rocket science guys! See if a page has bounce rate of 70% means that 70% of the readers/visitors who landed on that page decided to leave your site. The other 30% stayed on your site and performed at least one more click. Below I mentioned 30+ tips to reduce and improve your site’s bounce rate.
1. Good Web Layout And Design : You should be careful when choosing between magazine and normal layout theme. Many recommended Thesis theme for better bounce rate. The look of your site’s design can force your visitors to stay.
2. Relevant Content : If your blog is about Animals, then publish articles related to Animals category alone. Don’t write about Fruits and Vegetables. Because visitors will expect more from Animals category. Each page of your blog should be on-topic.
3. Clear and Proper Navigation : Let the users know where they are. Every blog should have breadcrumb. If not download it right now. Have a proper archives section. Place the navigation menu near the top of the page. Use simple and clear words for navigation options. Don’t use too many links there. Maximum of 7 links recommended.
4. Good and Original Content : Always publish original content. Never publish duplicate content which will affect your blog in several ways. Your blog’s content should be worth reading.
5. Avoid Distractions : Avoid pop-ups, external toolbars and anything similar to that which causes distractions to the visitors. You can also avoid using Text In Link ads. Trust me, it decreases page views.
6. Improve loading speed : Don’t make your visitors to wait. Your blog’s page views will automatically increase if the pages load faster and quicker. You can check the tips to improve and increase your blog’s loading speed.
7. Add Relevant Images : Make sure you add relevant and related images to the articles. Provide good resolution and quality images. I made a list of websites providing copyright and royalty free images, you can try that.
8. Avoid External Links : External links on your blog’s main page can make the bounce rate very high. So you can avoid external links on the first page that visitors see when they land on your site. Try to reduce the number of outgoing links.
9. Comparing : Compare the page which gets lower bounce rate with the page that gets higher. Ask your friends and other fellow bloggers the difference between them. This one helps a lot.
10. Analyze Bounce Rate : I recommend Google Analytics for analyzing your site’s bounce rate. Check your site’s bounce rate regularly and see if there is any change. Study the reports. See which page gets the lowest bounce rate and highest bounce rate. You can also check your site’s bounce rate through Alexa. Though, I don’t recommend it much.
11. Ample Content : Try to have minimum 300-400 words of content on your site’s pages. Try to provide sufficient content to your site visitors. Let it be in the form of images, text or videos.
12. Targeted Keywords : Your Keywords should be specifically targeted for the content on your site. Bounce rates are also influenced by wrongly optimized keywords. Consider a post title like this, “Top 15 Twitter Tools for Twitter Freaks“. And you optimize this post title with wrong keywords like “Twitter Hacks” or “Twitter’s New Service”. This makes the users annoy and they won’t visit that page/site later.
13. Minimize Pages : Try to minimize the number of pages you have on your website/blog. Keep it simple and clear, so that your visitors will not get confused.
14. Optimize With Keywords : Always use the keywords within your articles. For example, I have a post titled “7 Basic Tips For Improving Your Blog’s Alexa Rank“, and then I will use the keywords like “Improve Alexa Rank”, “Alexa Rank Tips” and so on. This will indeed increase the value of the keywords on the search engines.
15. Good and Effective Headlines : Each page’s title should match the content within that page. Don’t try to use misleading page titles. You can refer Google’s “Five Tips for Writing Effective Web Headlines“.
16. Offer subscriptions : You can offer RSS feeds and E-mail newsletters by which readers can easily subscribe and get daily updates. This will help in enhancing your site’s bounce rate because those readers will come back to read more.
17. Good Quality Links :Try to acquire as many good links as possible that points to your blog or blog’s page. Those links should have correct anchor text. You can hook other webmasters to link to your pages by placing genuine content in your pages. Avoid link exchange since there is a possibility of losing PageRank on both sides.
18. Remove Autoplay Videos : This is my opinion. I’ll close the site immediately if it starts singing. Remove the video altogether, or at least have it paused.
19. Popular Posts : You can use Popular Posts plugin and list the top and popular articles in your site’s sidebar.
20. Related Posts : There are many ways to show related posts on your blog. My favorite is Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP). You can try that. Showing related posts with images/thumbnails also works.
21. Internal Linking : By internal linking your readers can know about other content of your site without having to search for it. Interlink only if it is related to the article and you can also do this to your old articles. Try to link between your old articles as reference.
22. Place Search Box : You can provide your visitors with the option to search on your blog at the top. If they cannot find anything interesting on the landing page, they can use search option to navigate into the site.
23. Page SEO : Provide proper URL, title and keyword optimization. For WordPress users, I recommend All In One SEO plugin.
24. Interactive Articles : Ask questions to your readers and visitors. Your article should be in a reader friendly manner.
25. Free Downloads : You can easily attract visitors if you provide free downloads like free themes, free wallpapers and so on. You can make them click on that link easily.
26. Use Post Excerpts : If your article is too long you can use post excerpts. If there is too much content on the main page visitors will get tired by scrolling and they’ll decide to leave.
27. Eliminate Bad Traffic : If you’re getting/buying traffic from other sites and it is not profitable to you, then you need to eliminate all those sources. Check which PPC keywords are bouncing and shut those keywords.
28. Upper Left to Lower Right : Keep the upper left of your site pretty, pretty nice and attractive. Because visitors will first see that only and that decides whether they need to stay or not.
29. Optimize 404 Pages : Many blogs have ugly 404 error page. That makes the bounce rate to bounce more. Your visitors will leave your site and look elsewhere for the information they were looking for. So optimize the error page. Provide some solutions and suggestions there. You can check HB’s 404 Error page.
30. Optimize The Sidebar : Remove all those useless and time consuming widgets from your site’s sidebar and try to include widgets such as “Popular Posts” and “Recent Articles”. You can also use “tag cloud” in the sidebar.
31. Surveys and Polls : This is the best way to interact with your readers and visitors. You can ask them some questions or suggestions. You can check the results and you can predict whether they will stick around or not.
So what’s your site’s bounce rate? High? Low? Ahh.. 
Do you know any other tip to improve/reduce bounce rate? Please share it in the comments!
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Search engine traffic is the best way to reduce this bounce rate. It’s true that fellow bloggers leave your blog quite quickly when compared to people coming from Search engines.
ya true, traffic coming via search engines is very important for any website.
Very good article! There are some great tips in here, I really ought to do more on page SEO like you suggest, as I don’t really focus on that.
Really useful tips mate, nice one! I’ve RT’d!
Great advice but I disagree with #8. Outgoing links are important to shed your vanity.
Thanks for your first comment here mate..!
Well.. I too agree.. but for reducing bounce rate.. outgoing links should be minimized (at least) !
yeah outgoing links are necessary but don’t make this so much highlighed so visitor often click them.. I mean dont make this eye catching … if visitor search for it he/she would get it.. otherwise not
Thanks Pradeep.. so did u mean to say Thesis Theme Increases Bounce Rate? and Magazine theme doesn’t?
Thesis theme improves/reduces bounce rate mate!
My Bounce Rate is 50 %.
hey very good and huge list…
Its very much usefull for a new blogger like me
thanks pradeep……
Excellent tips and a wealth of information here, I will dedicate the next seven days to number 1 on the list. That will improve the looks of my blog in itself, numbers 2, 4, and 11, are next!
Thank you so much.
You left talking anything about the consequences of high bounce rate.
I don’t feel Google fair when it counts bounce out and does nothing with bounce in? But what might be relevancy of bounce in…..anyway…just my feeling.
I run a website and a blog. The bounce rate of site is relatively very low compared to the blog. I think it is natural. Even search engine traffic who made a search on particular topic, found your post and are satisfied with your great content, well explained and their query fulfilled. Now what? They will certainly bounce out to their work. Isn’t it.
Does Google take bounce rate very serious when the traffic are from Search Engines or from other blogs?
I thought everyone knew about the consequences..
Yes Suresh.. Google takes bounce rate seriously and it affects Google search rankings. It is easy for Google to analyze the bounce rate of sites with the help of their crawling/indexing system, Chrome and Analytics.
And, if the traffic is from Google Search Engine.. then they might think for a second.. ! Oof!
Usable design, great unique content and an easy navigation – is my way to deal with high bounce rates!
Great post
Great Tips Pardeep. Bounce rate is very important, these tips are really helpful.
You pretty much covered every bit of it, great!
I’ve noticed some sites really overuse those “Text In Link” ads that you mention. I find they make even the most well-written or compelling posts hard to finish, let alone revisit.
Kewl post dude!! Very good info. Loved it…… Thnx for sharing.. keep on rocking.
Thanks for the informations. SEO always play a big part
Thanks mate. You have compiled a very good tips collection. I have been already following some, I will try the rest too.
I agree with “provamsi @ India365″ and others with the importance of search engine. After all search engine juice is very important for any site’s long life.
Hi,
That’s an impressive list of tips! especially for a new blogger like myself
This is great article and I have to agree all of the reasons. There are so many reasons why websites can have high bounce rates and this article talks about most of them. I never really thought about the 404 pages. But I have an ugly one and need to get that taken care of.
Comment with your about page, you will get another page hit
, am i right Pradeep ?.
Yeah..
Increases Page Views.. ! 
OMG how many things!
I’m lacking in all the above 31.. After seeing this post.. I came to know what is bounce rate.. currently my bounce rate is 43%..
Thanks 4 the share dude!!
Nice tips. Thanks for the share bro.
Being a complete novice in blog commenting, I find your tips to be fantastic. I guess I was doing a few of your tips by accident. But I will incorporate the list into my daily approach.
Thank You.
First comment for me, nice so far.
Popular posts is HUGE, I’ve had posts last in there for a year or more as more and more comment on them.
once again good post, and the bounce rate is good i mean ok for my blog this month, when i start4ed it was so high.
Great compilation of the things to decrease bounce rate. The effective ways to decrease bounce rate are beautiful design/layout, unique content, customize the 404 error page and archives page and reduce the number of http requests
This is a great article. I’m new to blogging but still learning. Thanks for the great resource. It’s really helpful.
I was looking for ways to reduce my bounce rate and you gave me a lot of help. I just wanted to say thanks. After a couple months I have reduce my bounce rate.
Hey! Thanks for your tips
Well written post.
Some fine tips to be applied, you really have a lot of good ideas, Pradeep. Personally, I would adjust #6 for ‘reduce’ instead of avoid but that’s just me. ^^ Shared this post on the fan page, good job on this!
@wchingya
Social/Blogging Tracker
Beautiful tips. A high bounce rate suggests that visitors aren’t finding what they’re looking for when they arrive on the site. If you run an online store or internet marketing store, then a high bounce rate is cause for concern.
Nice post mate! its really important to reduce our bounce rate…. higher bounce rates means that people don’t like our blogs!
the list is quite hectic to do.. simply quite lengthy
keep checking your site and web server and avoid from any malicious script running, or sometime chrome give a alert as a attack site… this is one of the reason for bouncing
This is really helpful..Even ma site has a low bounce rate
Long page loads destroy bounce rates. Try not to have more than 20 page elements that need to load.
30 tips to reduce the site’s bounce rate a great post I read on this topic. I will apply these tricks on my site and blog also. Yes this is true that search engines but your site is also good to force the readers to view more and more pages.
Fantastic list of points and this is complete and thorough, my bounce rate was really high last year when I used Entrecard, and other various programs like CMF Ads and Adgitize which tend to hurt your bounce rating. The YARPP plug-in is excellent.
There are lot of ways to reduce the bounce rate of a website. When a visitor arrives via a link they have very little context for your website. So make sure every page is self-explanatory and can be understood without having to read any other pages on your site.
Nice tips.
Thanks for share…
Is there anyone who have done all of those stuffs? I have done max 10/30 but not always as sometimes I write posts in natural ways
I use the yet another related posts plugin to engage my readers! Also, I make it a point to link many words in the blog content with my older articles, so that even they get proper exposure!
Thank you very much. I dont have any idea on websites bounce rate and all. Thanks for your insight.
Thanks for the tips. Naturally, if you want visitors to stick around, your content should be worth reading and regularly updated. This also ensures that your content gets linked to from other sites, which will in turn increase your traffic.
A lower bounce rate is better, but bounce rate averages can vary by industry or type of site.
Excellent tips as usual. My blog’s bounce rate is currently higher than I would like.
Thanks for the tips. I really need to clean up my sidebars.
I’m still trying to build traffic to my site. Once I increase the number of visitors then I’ll worry about bounce rate.
Search Engines my bring visitors that stay longer, but I think other bloggers leave more comments.
To measure site success, you should count only loyal users who return repeatedly. This will definitely increase bouncerate and page rank.
Very good list, so many valuable tips and resources that I’ll be spending some time on.
I think diversifying yourself from others and creating valuable content are probably the two most important aspects of having less bounce rate.
MathewDay
Website designs that use many images generally take a long time to load. Hence it must be avoided.
i use a few of these..there are obviously more now that i need to use…i also use a linkwithin wordpress plugin to display links to other posts
My website has a bounce rate of 1.8 Percent. Is it good or not?
The page header is an important sign post that helps visitors orient themselves to your website and keep an note on it.
Bounce rate is one of the most underrated statistics in your website data.
From where can I hire a good Back Link Builder for my blog site?
Your new site theme looks good than the old one. What is the name of this theme.
I’ll have to agree with you on that one that Text inlink ads cause distractions. That’s the principal reason why I dumped it after some few days of trial
I’ve also recently fixed my 404 error page and included a customized Google search engine, to have them search the site for exactly what they were looking for
Udegbunam Chukwudi’s last blog…Beware Of MMO Blog Setup Services Like This One!
The formula used to calculate bounce rate is: Bounce Rate = Total Number of Visits Viewing One Page / Total Number of Visits
@ Tenerife
Thanks for your informative comment. Where did u get this formula?
I really need help with this, my website http://www.speedysolutions.biz, has very high bounce rate, coz used sites like trafficswarm to get traffic. I got traffic but they stood only for 15 to 20 seconds and left for another site, so as to get credits for their own site. I need some fool proof system where i can get traffic, which stays to my site and do navigate through other pages.
Please help me my email: mohneesh17 at gmail dot com
By optimising page design one can reduce website’s bounce rate.
@electronic cigarette
If your sites bounce rate is 1.8%, it means that out of every 100 person who visits my website only 1 leaves without reading additional pages.
There are lots of handy tips and techniques to help you reduce bounce rates on your website.
Absolutely agree with most of your points. Having a related post plugin doesn’t hurt either
TechChunks’s last blog…Don’t Press F1 If You Are Using Microsoft XP
The bounce rate is the percentage of users who view only a single page in your website then leave.