Great Web Design Tips to Improve your Bounce Rate
A number of web design issues can lead to a high bounce rate, including confusing website layouts, outdated aesthetics, or even just slow load times. We will address all of these issues and more so you can optimize your website to improve your bounce rate and maximize your conversions!
If you like the following web design tips, consider hiring one of our website design experts to make these changes for you! We have a proven track record as the #1 Atlanta web design service provider.
If you want to improve your bounce rate, let us help you with these web design tips:
1. Declutter your site for faster load times.
The first of our web design tips to massively improve your bounce rate is to speed up your site’s load time.
Let’s face it: we’ve all been there. Everyone has clicked off of a website in frustration because it just didn’t load fast enough. Sometimes we do this after a delay of just a few seconds. Ideally, your website should load within three seconds. Otherwise, you could be losing valuable customers!
The following web design tips can speed up your site’s load time and decrease your bounce rate:
Truncate image files: images take up a lot of bandwidth, so one of the simplest ways to improve your website’s load time is to optimize your image sizes. In many cases, you can make image files smaller so that they consume less bandwidth without actually impacting the way the images appear on your site at all.
Get rid of any plugins you do not use or need: every time someone clicks onto your website, it has to load all of your plugins. Having too many plugins can drastically slow down your load speed. We recommend removing or deactivating all plugins that are not 100% necessary.
Minify your website’s code: whether your website is built with HTML, JavaScript, or CSS, code can be “minified” by removing any and all unnecessary characters. This has been known to improve website load times considerably.
Use a web host that works for you: not all web hosts are the same. If your web host is slowing down your site, switch to a new one that can promise faster load times! It isn’t a good idea just to go with the most affordable web host since you can be losing a lot of money in the long run with a slow website. A quality web host is definitely a worthwhile investment!
Studies show that even a one second delay in page load time can lead to 11% fewer page views, a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction, and 7% loss in conversions!
Likewise, 64% of online shoppers claim that they will take their business elsewhere if an online store doesn’t load quickly enough. Improving your website’s load speed is one of the best and easiest web design tips to decrease your bounce rate.
2. Optimize your site for conversions.
When you optimize your website for conversions, you make it as simple as possible for visitors to get from your homepage to the thank you page. Any confusion along the way could tempt your future customers to click off of your website. We know you don’t want that!
Mapping out the user journey from the homepage to the end point of your main conversion goal can do wonders for improving your bounce rate. Test it out yourself, and enlist the help of others to make sure getting from point A to point B is as simple and clear as possible.
Some web design tips that can help optimize your site for conversions are to make primary conversion points big, bold, and above the fold. Of course, there is no actual “fold” on a web page, but “above the fold” refers to the area of the screen users do not have to scroll down to get to.
3. Use a visual hierarchy.
The idea of enhancing your website with an effective visual hierarchy goes hand in hand with the above point about optimizing your site for conversions. One of the more important web design tips we could give is to make sure the most important features of your website are also the most eye-catching.
The use of bold fonts, large text sizes, and bright colors can help create a visual hierarchy, showing website visitors through the use of clear visual cues what is more important and what is less important on your website.
Want an easy test to figure out if your visual hierarchy is effective? Try the squint test!
Step back from your computer screen and squint so the whole page is a blur. The only noticeable features will be the largest, boldest, and most colorful areas of the screen. Are those areas the ones you want people focusing on? If you answered yes, you’re on the right track!
4. Include social share buttons.
Do you have a blog on your website? Are there social share buttons on every blog? If not, the following web design tips are for you!
Every blog post on your website should feature buttons in the corner allowing readers to easily share your blogs on social media without having to leave your website. This promotes brand awareness without contributing to your bounce rate. After all, you don’t want a reader to be so impressed with your blog that they click off your website to share a post and don’t actually end up converting!
Having social share buttons also has the added benefit of reminding users they can share your blogs, encouraging people who might not have thought of it otherwise. The more links on social media sending people back to your website the better!
5. Use colors effectively.
People can’t read what they can’t see. And they won’t read what they can barely see either. Always make sure the text on your website is in a color that contrasts from the background. There is a reason 99% of books have black text on white paper. It’s easy to read.
Playing around with color is fine, and highly recommended, but make sure the colors you are using make sense together. No one wants to read a bright blue font on a lime green background because there is not enough contrast and the text will be hard to read. Likewise, that same lime green background will not go well with a hot pink font; that is simply too much contrast and can strain users’ eyes. Stick with colors that compliment each other well and contrast just enough to make readability a breeze.
6. Include an FAQ.
Having a page on your website devoted to answering frequently asked questions can provide a lot of value for your visitors. If they have a burning question, the FAQ is probably the first place they will look. If you don’t have an FAQ page, or if they can’t find the question they are looking for, they might become frustrated and exit your site. It’s a good idea to not only have an FAQ page but also to update it regularly as new questions about your brand arise.
In addition to providing value to your website visitors, FAQ pages can also improve search engine rankings and help streamline site navigation!
7. Utilize white space.
White space, also known as negative space, refers to the blank areas of a web page in between text and images. It may not seem like much, but white space is actually an incredibly important design feature. Effective use of white space can make a huge difference in terms of the readability of your website.
If your website is cluttered with too much multimedia, users can be distracted from main conversion points and more likely to exit your site without carrying out your desired call to action. Streamlining your site with white space can do wonders to improve your bounce rate.
8. Use unique, eye-catching images.
While white space is vital and too many images on a website can distract or overwhelm people, you should take some time to upgrade the quality of the images you do have on your website. It will be worth it in the long run to invest in high-quality product photography. Blurry or low-resolution photos can come off as unprofessional and may ruin your chances of gaining a valuable customer. If you don’t have custom images, don’t worry. Stock photography has come a long way and many modern free stock images are not as cheesy as they used to be.
Decorating your website with a few high-quality images is a significantly better method than loading it up with dozens of low-quality images.
Overwhelmed trying to include all these web design tips on your site? Relax and hire the expert web designers in Pagosa Springs, CO to handle all the hard work for you!
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