Internet jargon defines bounce as the act of arriving at a webpage and leaving without going further into the website. To calculate the bounce rate, you divide the number of people bouncing by the total number of visitors to the webpage. Multiply this value by 100 to get the percentage of bounce.
Whether you use online store software or simply provide information to your visitors, you want to ensure your visitors traverse further into your website. When your visitors bounce, Google knows when, they tell Google, and of course the other search engines, that the linked webpage fails to meet relevance expectations. Many methods exist to reduce bounce rates and this article covers six ways to reduce bounce rates.
Reduce Bounce Rates by Qualifying Your Visitors
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines v2 (WCAG2) recommends using link text that identifies what the potential visitor should expect after clicking the link. Guideline H30: Providing link text that describes the purpose of a link for anchor elements states, "[D]escribe the purpose of a link by providing descriptive text as the content of the a element. The description lets a user distinguish this link from other links in the Web page and helps the user determine whether to follow the link. The URI of the destination is generally not sufficiently descriptive."1
On May 11, 2024, Google received patent status for an update to their Page Rank algorithm. Patent number 7,716,225 entitled "Ranking documents based on user behavior and/or feature data" specifically states, "[N]umber of words in anchor text associated with the link; actual words in the anchor text associated with the link; commerciality of the anchor text associated with the link ..."2
The words you use in your link text not only help the disabled understand the purpose of the target document, but it helps search engines understand as well. Because search engines use the page title for the link text, your page title should include an action word. In other cases, where the link to your webpage resides on a webpage within another domain, the link text should include action words or identifiers.
The following sections describe action words and identifiers; and how they help you qualify your visitors before they become a bounce.
Action Words Reduce Bounce Rates
We conducted two surveys of various websites to determine the effectiveness of action words in reducing bounce rates. The first survey focused upon visitors arriving from search engines and the second focused upon visitors from non-search engines.
The initial review for the first survey required identifying the keywords used to find the webpages, the number of visitors for each keyword, and the number of people bouncing for each keyword. We applied heuristics in the comparison of the page title against each keyword to determine how relevant each keyword was to the webpage. We then grouped the keywords into two groups: more relevant and less relevant.
We noticed that the less relevant keywords had an average of 23.47% higher bounce rate than the more relevant group. We proposed a theory that by applying an action word to the beginning of the page title we could reduce the bounce rate for the less relevant keyword group.
We added appropriate action words to the page titles and let them run for 60 days. After the 60-day run, we compared the keyword groups from the baseline set with the keywords for the test period. The following table identifies the results:
| Baseline Average | Test Period Average | Percent Improvement | |
| More Relevant | 38.91% | 23.26% | 40.22% |
| Less Relevant | 62.38% | 29.74% | 52.32% |
The initial review for the second survey required we identify referral sources and the link text used on those webpages, the number of visits from each source, and the number of people bouncing for each source. We applied heuristics in the comparison of the link text against the topic of each target webpage. We then grouped the link text into two groups: more relevant and less relevant.
For this survey, we considered link text as less relevant when the link read within the sentence made no sense. This type of link text clearly attempts to increase the relevance of a webpage for a search term. Such terms as "energy audit New Jersey" leave little room to write sentences because the link text does not include stop words.
In accordance with WCAG2, we had to consider terms like "click here" as more relevant when the author included the purpose of the link prior to the link text. Bear in mind that Page Rank 2.0 also considers this method as more relevant.
We noticed that the less relevant link text had an average of 55.39% higher bounce rate than the more relevant group. We proposed a theory that by applying an action word to the beginning of the link text and including stop words, we could reduce the bounce rate for the less relevant keyword group.
We added appropriate action words and stop words to the link text and let them run for 60 days. After the 60-day run, we compared the link text groups from the baseline set with the link text for the test period. The following table identifies the results:
| Baseline Average | Test Period Average | Percent Improvement | |
| More Relevant | 31.78% | 25.38% | 20.14% |
| Less Relevant | 87.17% | 38.69% | 55.62% |
The results of these two surveys clearly indicate that action words aid in reducing bounce rates. We surmise that the action words aid potential visitors receive improved expectations of what they can do on the linked webpage. This improved level of expectation allows the potential visitor to decide if the linked webpage meets their expectations prior to arriving at the webpage.
Note: This by no means indicates you should fool your potential visitor into thinking you offer something you do not. Remember, Google and the other search engines are looking at bounce rates to determine the relevancy of a webpage for keywords. The bad news, once your webpage becomes non-relevant as a result of bounce rates you have no possibility of becoming relevant again.
The following short list provides examples of action words that successfully reduce bounce rates:
- Buy
- Purchase
- Lease
- Rent
- Sell
Identifiers Reduce Bounce Rates
Following the same paradigm as action words, identifiers classify the purpose of the linked webpage. By classifying your webpage, you allow searchers to qualify their interest in your webpage. People looking for research material do not need or want to visit a webpage that sells a product. Nor do people who want to buy a product or service need or want to visit a webpage lacking the ability to purchase.
The following short list provides examples of identifiers that successfully reduce bounce rates:
- Blog
- Article
- Review
- Comparison
- Opinion
- Document
- Spreadsheet
- Presentation
Reduce Bounce Rates by Chaining Your Thoughts
When the U.S. government engaged Tim Berners-Lee in the development of HTML, the goal was to create a method of linking documents together making it easier to navigate from document to document. Berners-Lee solved the need by creating hyperlinking.
Hyperlinking allows for linking to information within the same webpage and to other webpages. These links allow search engines to discover additional webpages, which they can add to their databases for later retrieval. Visitors can navigate from webpage to webpage by clicking a hyperlink within a webpage.
Link Trails Reduce Bounce Rates
Link trails reduce bounce rates by getting your visitors to go to another webpage within your website.
Link trails exist within the body of your webpage. As you develop your content, consider how you can get your visitors to navigate to another webpage within your website for additional information or details.
Including all the information about a product, service, or topic into a single page is the best way to generate bounces. Put another way, if you tell everything on one webpage, why would anyone ever need to go deeper into your website?
"Continued on Next Page" Links Reduce Bounce Rates
"Continued on next page" links are used like newspapers and magazines use them. They get the reader to navigate to another webpage. Newspapers and magazines use "continued on ..." references to get readers further into the printed material where advertisements exist.
Some website owners use "continued on next page" links at the bottom of a segment of content to get visitors moving forward through the website. This gives the website owner the opportunity to present additional ads to the visitor in hopes of getting the visitor to bite.
While you can use these links in the above manner, you should now consider using them in an attempt to get the visitor deeper into your website thereby avoiding bounces.
Reduce Bounce Rates by Solving Search Engine Relevance Issues
Search engines use mathematical equations to determine the relevance of particular webpage to a specific query. Unfortunately, when you provide bad data to the equation you often end up with a less correct answer. Many reasons exist as to why a particular webpage of lesser relevance than one within the same website finds itself considered more relevant.
Traffic Signs Reduce Bounce Rates
On a daily basis people conduct searches and receive suggestions from search engines and discover the suggestion fails to deliver the desired information. You have probably found yourself in the same situation.
When this situation occurs on your website you need to overcome the relevance problem by increasing your relevance. That sounds simple, right? Normally poor relevance results from poor search engine optimization or poor website infrastructure.
You're probably nodding your head, but wondering how a poorly optimized webpage could appear in the top search results. Remember, you have already seen this on more than one occasion and will see it more than once again.
When one of your lesser relevant webpages appears higher in the search results than a more relevant webpage, you need to get the more relevant webpage higher. In the meantime, you need to direct visitors to the most relevant webpage within your website using traffic signs.
Traffic signs include links and/or image links above fold, the first full screen of content in an 800x600 screen resolution. These links and/or image links guide visitors to the more relevant webpage within your website.
Keyword Mapping™ Reduces Bounce Rates
Keyword Mapping™ directs visitors to the webpage most relevant to the search query. This patent pending solution maps keywords to specific webpages ensuring visitors always receive the most relevant webpage.
We have successfully used this solution decreasing bounce rates by up to 52.3% while increasing sales by up to 13.9%.
Conclusion
Using the six methods discussed in this article aid you in reducing bounce rates. You can use one or a combination of these methods to reduce your bounce rates. The advantages of reducing your bounce rates comes in additional sales and the opportunity of maintaining your top search placements.
Bear in mind that once user behavior, too many bounces, can lead your webpage and even website from never appearing in the top search results again. Yes, once devalued by bounces, the search engines eliminate your webpage or website from future consideration. Do not allow this to happen to you.
Footnotes
1 H30: Providing link text that describes the purpose of a link for anchor elements. http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/H30.html
2 Ranking documents based on user behavior and/or feature data. Patent number: 8,117,209. Date of Patent Issue: February 14, 2024. http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=%22Ranking+documents+based+user+behavior+and%2For+feature+data%22.TI.&OS=TTL
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