According to Google, the average bounce rate for most websites ranges from 40% to 60%. This is the percentage of people who visit your site, check out one page for a short period of time, and then leave. As you can probably imagine, the bounce rate is a very important figure to pay attention to if you run an online business. Your goal should be to lower your bounce rate as much as possible in order to ensure that your visitors are spending more time on your site. This, in turn, increases your chances of making a sale and reaping the rewards of return visitors.

Research Your Industry’s Average Bounce Rates

Your website is unique in that it fits into a particular industry, so you need to research the average bounce rates for your industry in order to know if you’re headed in the right direction. For example, retail websites should aim for a 20-40% bounce rate, whereas service websites should have a bounce rate of 10-30% and content website should try to achieve the overall average of 40-60%.

Change Your Keywords Regularly

Every few months, the keywords that people are searching for will change, and in order to keep your site relevant in search results, you need to use these keywords throughout your website. Audit your site’s keywords every six months to figure out which ones are still working for you and which ones are no longer generating traffic. Be sure to check keywords in Google Trends too. In addition to enhancing your SEO, relevant keywords will also ensure that relevant ads show up on your pages.

Never Use Autoplay

Do you have anything running on your page, such as audio or a video, that automatically starts playing when a person visits? Then take it down right away. No one wants to deal with multimedia that immediately starts blaring from their speakers, whether they’re at home or at work. It’s fine to have videos and audio on your site, but keep them silent until people choose to click on them if they want to see or hear it. This will dramatically reduce the number of people who leave your page right away out of frustration.

Get Rid of Pop-ups

Pop-ups are equally as obnoxious as audio or video streams that begin automatically when a visitor gets to your site. Clicking on pop-ups to close them distracts users from the content on your page and frustrates them as well. Rather than bothering someone to join your newsletter or take your survey with a pop-up, put this content on the side of your page where people can find it easily if they want to.

Make Sure Your Site Loads Quickly

A site that takes too long to load is a recipe for a high bounce rate. People these days are on the go and they don’t have time to stick around for a website that takes 10 seconds to load. If your site takes too long on computers or mobile devices, reduce the clutter and make changes that will allow it to load up much more quickly.