How to Decrease Your Bounce Rate
If your business is suffering from a lack of leads and clients, a quick check on your bounce rate could reveal the problem.
Bounce rate is the frequency with which visitors leave your site immediately after visiting your landing page – they land, and then they “bounce” away.
A high bounce rate is a big problem. It often means your website seems irrelevant to visitors, causing them to become frustrated and leave.
Decreasing your bounce rate, then, is a great way to optimize your website. The more visitors click around your site, the likelier they are to become leads – so read on to find out a few simple ways you can combat a high bounce rate.
Make content readable and logical
My content is great, you might be thinking – and that could very well be true.
But no matter how relevant the information on your website is to a visitor, it’s sure to drive them away if it’s formatted messily or illegible.
Huge blocks of text are a major problem to avoid, and it’s important that everything on the page is well-organized, too – readers should know exactly where to go from the way you lay things out.
Fonts should be attractive, but not gimmicky, and text should be large enough – and varied enough – to follow what you’re saying.
Give visitors something to do
A high bounce rate doesn’t always mean visitors find your content unhelpful – they might just not know what to do next.
Adding subscribe buttons or email opt-in forms can prevent bouncing by giving visitors something to click on.
Creating opt-in forms can be complicated for the non-savvy, but there are many plugins that make things simpler.
Sumo is perfect for quickly adding opt-in forms thanks to its very functional free version. It’s meant to increase your email list, and it does so by providing pop-up displays for your visitors to interact with – thus lowering your bounce rate.
The catch, though, is that the free version has their branding attached to anything you add to your site.
If you’re more serious about using opt-in forms to lower your bounce rate, Thrive Leads offers an incredibly feature-rich plugin to do just that.
Thrive Leads has a higher cost barrier, but it makes up for this by requiring only an annual cost, rather than the monthly pricing structure that many other opt-in plugins use.
Use A/B testing to try out design changes
It’s one thing to change your website’s look in a way that you think makes it more attractive – but it’s much more important what your visitors think.
While you can look at before-and-after data to see what lowers your bounce rate, chances are you’ll be changing much more than your website’s look after reading this article.
A/B testing allows you to show a different version of your website to different visitors, giving you a direct comparison of different looks.
You can use this method to test the tiniest of tweaks or wholesale overhauls of your layout, all in a controlled way. This gives you a reliable, quantified look at what impact your changes are having on visitors.
Make sure it’s mobile-friendly
With more and more visitors browsing the internet via mobile – and with mobile overtaking desktop users – displaying poorly on a smartphone is sure to tank your bounce rate.
What’s more, mobile-friendliness is a ranking factor, meaning you’re getting fewer visits overall if your website won’t load for mobile users.
Thankfully, there’s an easy way to check for this: Google offers a mobile-friendly test tool where you can enter your website’s URL and get feedback from Google.
The feedback is specific, too – they’ll tell you if the text is too small or if the content is too wide for a mobile screen, among other possible problems.
Conclusion
Bounce rate isn’t everything, but it can tell you a lot about your site’s quality.
If visitors to your site are leaving immediately, that’s bad for your business, as you won’t ever get a chance to convert those visits to sales.
What’s more, a high bounce rate can hurt your search ranking – making it all the more important to follow these tips and push that figure as low as you can.
Author Bio
Benjamin H is a marketing strategist and writer. He enjoys growing companies online using advanced marketing strategies. His hobbies include reading, writing, and watching documentaries.
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Which CMS you should use
Building a new website? Trying to decide what CMS to build it on? There are plenty of great systems to choose from. How do you pick which one to use?
Price can be one determining factor there are a number of proprietary systems that give you great support and an easy to use interface but you’ll have to pay. Other systems let you figure it out yourself for free but you might end up paying developers later if you need to add functionality.
It is also important to compare features. It’s always wise to list the functions your site needs to perform, and check that they are readily available on your selected CMS. Particularly if you plan to include e-commerce, the platform you choose will have a big impact on the features available.
Security can be another deal breaker. A widely used open source CMS can be a target for hackers looking to exploit security flaws so it is important to know, how these have been dealt with in the past, and that development of the software is ongoing.
If you need some help making your decision, check out this great resource to help you figure out what CMS suits you: https://www.quikclicks.com.au/infographics/cms-review-comparison-2019/
How to do lead nurturing right.
Your success as a businessperson is built on relationships. If you have negative relationships, that will be apparent in your results. But the more positive relationships you have—be they with existing customers or with potential customers—and you’ll notice it in your results, but with positivity.
That’s where lead nurturing come in. Although it’s just one element of the sales relationship, it’s an important one. It’s the first part of the customer journey and it’s where you have a chance to make that first impression that could lead people to a lasting connection with you, or could lead them away from you, permanently.
But lead nurturing isn’t just about making more sales. Of course, you’re converting people. But you’re also learning how to better qualify your leads. And you’re gathering more data, which in the end helps make you a better company for someone to establish a relationship with. This graphic explains more.
5 Benefits Of Taking A DevOps Course For Businesses
Business in the digital era is a cut throat world. From aggressive takeovers to mergers just to survive - it’s tough to stay afloat. Which is why for software companies especially investing in IT infrastructure and development has become more than just a want.
It’s no longer optional.
At least if you want to ensure you have a major stream of revenue over competitors. And, more importantly, streamline your production to keep users/clientele happy at all times.
The good news is an emerging practice known as DevOps can help you do this. And through this article, we plan to go over the exact benefits that DevOps can have on your company if you decide to invest in it of course.
Shall we get started?
First - Let’s Get The Elephant In The Room Dealt With
What on Earth is DevOps?
It’s such a strange and awkward term. It does not help that there are as many definitions for DevOps teams as there are clouds in the sky.
As confusing as it may be in the beginning. Don’t worry, we got you. Basically, DevOps is the process of streamlining your pipeline to deliver higher, more consistent value to end users.
This is done through automated business processes, and improving the collaboration and productivity between engineering and development teams responsible for creating, and perfecting the software of your company.
The entire idea behind DevOps is to shift the barriers that tend to delay launch day and help minimize the collateral damage of delays and bugs.
So, Now That We Know What DevOps Is, How Does It Help Your Business?
Of course, you want to know exactly why and how DevOps in your business will increase your profits, and improve customer satisfaction. The advantages that we have listed below are in chronological order of significance.
Faster Time To Market
One of the significant benefits of implementing DevOps in your business is the ability to deploy new patches, or even applications far quicker. We are talking about almost a 40-percent reduction in the duration of project development.
This is thanks to the various tools that DevOps teams rely on to be efficient. Including continuous integration, and automation - which are both important tools for successful teams. This saves up a bucket load of time, that can be invested in developing, testing, and finding bugs.
You can find out more about the benefits of Conformity regulations, Continous Integration, Continous Development, and Automation in DevOps by reading this article.
Improved Flexibility And Support
Another benefit of DevOps is scalability. See, unlike general programming - Developers can work on blocks of code at a time. This means bugs are easier to trace and fix. The software is easier to update and combine for the end product.
There are also various microservice technologies such as the cloud that provide a more efficient infrastructure for teams to work on and communicate about various problems that may be causing software to bug out.
Team Work And Communication Are On Point
The idea behind DevOps is a team responsibility. That’s why things are broken up into segments. Developers rely on Engineers just as much as the Engineers rely on Developers. This provides strong workforce morale and communication over problems. Leading to affirmative action, and more discipline in the workforce.
Of course, there are also more efficient tools used for tracking, organizing, and monitoring progress on the pipeline for development. Helping teams are more coordinated.
There Are Some Challenges To Overcome
Now, we don’t want to make it seem to good to be true.
Yes, it is true that DevOps can help solve a lot of problems that businesses typically face on a daily basis. However, implementing DevOps in your business will be far from easy.
For example, DevOps specialists do not come cheap. There is a reason why we are referring to this as an investment. On average, to hire a specialist with enough experience to be worthwhile, you will be looking at roughly $121,583 to $143,707 per year.
Another challenge that businesses tend to face is tools selection. There are so many tools available to choose from, that finding the ones that meet your teams needs perfectly can be a real headache.
Not to mention when your business does scale, you may find the need to change things up and opt for tools with a bigger work capacity. Which at the end of the day can be a difficult transition for your team. Here is a guide to help you get started with your tool selection if you do happen to seriously consider investing in DevOps for your business.
The good news is that’s about it. If you are looking for a reasonably easy way to get your profit up, improve customer satisfaction, and idea - end product development, DevOps is certainly the way to go.
How to Combine SEO and UX to Improve Your Website
Once upon a time, rankings were all that mattered in the SEO arena. And at a point, it was a straightforward process. So straightforward that spammers were rewarded for aggressively trying to dominate search engine rankings.
Things aren’t so simple these days. Google has come up with a plethora of ways to combat this sort of behaviour; the type that prioritizes ranking over helping people fix their problems. During this evolutionary process, not only has Google changed SEO, but it has also changed SEO professionals and the mind-set of anyone looking to have some semblance of success in reaching their audience.
Provided you are among these SEO professionals who prioritize solving your audience’s problems, as opposed to resorting to some ham-fisted strategy to bombard Google’s front page, algorithm updates like Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird, aren’t likely to affect you that badly. Or at all really.
On the other side of the fence, the guys and gals who practice SEO like it’s a game of rugby continue to be hit hard over and over, reaping poor results, and worse.
Remember, unless a business is focused on its customers and their problems, it isn’t likely to grow. The same goes in the digital space.
SEO, however, is not the only thing that should concern you – there’s also UX. Let’s talk some more about how these two work hand in hand.
Why User Experience is Critical to SEO
Considering there is a whole field of UX optimization, which requires its own level of expertise, you won’t have to be a UX genius. In most cases, surface level knowledge of basic website UX principles should be enough.
UX optimization, in essence, is focusing on your website visitors. One might argue, we are also focusing on search engines -- which is not inaccurate. However, if you tweak your perspective a bit, you will realize that search engines require things of us based on what searchers want. In other words, search engines are prioritizing visitors too.
Combining SEO and UX
When considering strategies to combine SEO and UX, keep in mind that not every option is worth pursuing. Just because a certain tactic worked for website A doesn’t mean it will work for website B. In fact, what was heaven-sent for website A just might be a nightmare when implemented on website B or C.
Below, we cover information on tactics that can make all the difference for a website; providing these tactics are properly implemented. So, without further ado, let’s get into it.
Reeling them in
When converting visitors, you first want to get them to click on your website. Now, you can aim to land on the front page of Google, and be on equal footing with every other top website in your niche. Or you can go the extra mile, and try and stand out among the crowd. This is where SEO plays its part in the SEO/UX combination. Here is some stuff to keep in mind when vying for the clicks:
- Title Tags
- URLs/breadcrumbs and
- Meta descriptions
Here’s why they matter.
Title Tags
A title tag is a clickable link in a search result. Considering there is such limited space, you’ll want to make it count. Besides, it is the first thing potential visitors will see. Keep in mind, the language used here should match the search or keyword. Be sure to include some extra bit of information that makes your title tag jump out at readers as they are scanning potential sites to visit.
URLs/Breadcrumbs
The breadcrumb is the URL trail that follows the title tag. This too is important for reeling in potential visitors. Earlier we mentioned keyword research is super important in this process. Well, under keyword research, you have other factors such as search intent and searcher language. It is important that both of these are reflected in your “breadcrumb” to have searchers follow through with a click.
Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions are simple, straight forward text that follows your title tag. But as simple as the text may appear, getting the hang of writing them can be tricky. As is the case with most texts where characters (and attention spans) are limited. Long story short, whatever you say here may win you a click or disregard from a potential visitor.
Where UX Comes In
It’s not enough that your title tag and meta descriptions enticed users to click on your website. Now you have to keep them engaged. This is where UX shines or should shine depending on whether you are doing your job correctly.
Remember UX principles are all about focusing on your website visitor. Let’s have a look at some of the ways you can optimize your UX.
Clean Logo
A clean logo can be invaluable. After all, it’s the first thing visitors see when they land on your site. It is important that your logo is not surrounded by clutter and is positioned intuitively. That way visitors have no room for confusion.
Header Tags
Another important element on your site, your header should help to reassure visitors they have landed on a relevant website. Relevant meaning you provide the information/service they need.
Typically the topmost header tag (H1 header) displays text similar to your title tag.
Navigation
Visitors are likely to scan navigation to make sense of the website they are on. This also presents a unique opportunity for you to capture their interest. For instance, what kind of service do you offer? How many different services or products? Of course, this is also a great place to use keywords.
Chatbots help
Earlier we mentioned ways to reassure visitors they have come to the right place. Chatbots are also a good way to achieve this. A bit of solid programming goes a long way. Having a chatbot to address common questions visitors are likely to ask can help potential customers understand what they are in store for. It also allows you to focus on bigger issues that will arise down the line.