Do visitors leave after viewing only a single page on your website? Or do your visitors navigate to another site after viewing only a single page on your website? High bounce rates among e-commerce stores are common.

As per HubSpot, the bounce rate among e-commerce websites is 20-45%.

Though a visitor may click on a website accidentally, there are several other causes of bounce rates. 

• Your website may be having only a few relevant pages.
• Your site may be hard to navigate. 
• Web design and graphics may not be appealing.
• The site’s content may be unappealing.
• Your site may be slow to load. 
• Intrusive popups and ads might be affecting the user experience.
• Your site may be lacking an e-commerce call to action.

Though you can’t reduce your e-commerce bounce rate to zero, here are x ways to decrease it:

• Focus on optimizing your product pages

Your product page is one of the most important parts of your ecommerce site. It will determine whether your web visitors will remain just visitors or actually turn into customers. 

In order to lower your bounce rate, focus on keeping your product page clean, add reviews, include a clear CTA, and write a persuasive copy.

Your potential clients almost always browse through your reviews and specifications before they buy your products. 

If you take a look at the product page from Pura Vida Bracelets, they put their review section at the front and center.

You will also find that the add to cart button is bright red to make it stand out. The use of icons and short descriptions also highlight the product’s quality and consistency.

• Increase site speed

In the age of high-speed internet and quick access to pretty much everything else, most people aren’t going to wait for your site to load. 

They’ll quickly close your webpage and move on to another site. Thus, naturally, a website that is slow to load will have a high bounce rate. 

As per statistics, e-commerce websites that are slow to load have a 72% higher bounce rate as compared to fast loaders and a 38% higher bounce rate compared to medium loaders. 

A site that loads fast also ranks higher on search engines. 

Make sure to follow these tips to increase your e-commerce site speed: 

• You can reduce the page size. 
• Don’t embed big objects or images on a page.
• When you build your pages, keep load times in mind. 
• You can also use compression software like Gzip to reduce the data size sent to a browser.

Additionally, make sure to use a content delivery network if you have customers around the world. It will cache the content on servers located wherever your customers are and reduce load times. 

Apart from that, if you use a hosted or licensed e-commerce platform, regulate the configurations to increase page load speed. 

You can also reduce redirects on your website if you have to increase load times and opt for fast hosting servers.

• Implement smart formatting to make your content more accessible 

If your web page is full of text, your visitors will find it intimidating when they click through it. No matter how valuable or unique your content is, it will be worthless if your readers leave your site without reading it.

Try to format your pages so that it looks welcoming and accessible to reduce your bounce rate. The more comfortable your content is to read, the more likely your visitors will stay on your page. 

Avoid lengthy paragraphs and make use of white space so that your content is more reader-friendly. Using headers appropriately, subheadings, suitable images, and bulleted lists are smart ways to make your content reader-friendly.

When you use these formatting options, your content will be more accessible, and your reader can scan or skim your content quickly to spot relevant points that they need.

• Add a single, clear Call-to-Action

Considering what content the user wants is essential, but you should also think about the exact action you want your users to take after they’ve consumed the content. 

When you know what action you want them to take, you can prompt your visitors to implement it by including a single, clear call to action.

However, make sure that you don’t overdo it! 

If there are many CTAs on a single page, it might end up confusing and overwhelming your visitors. Your visitors should effortlessly find whatever they are looking for and complete the action quickly.

Here’s is an excellent example of a clear and actionable CTA:

You should take user intent into consideration and how your pages can help visitors achieve their task. Only then include a clear and relevant call to action.

• Use relevant keywords 

Unless you attract relevant, high-quality traffic to your site, it will result in a high bounce rate. Implementing the right keywords will play a vital role in content marketing and lead generation. So ensure that you’re targeting the right keywords.

If statistics are anything to go by, Google generates more than 95% of its revenue from advertising. This clearly implies that a more significant share of their revenue is generated from targeting expensive keywords.

Placing high-value keywords in your website content will boost your traffic, conversion, and engagement rate. What’s more, they also help you increase your business reputation and authority.

You can use tools such as Google Keyword Planner and Ahrefs to recognize and evaluate the potential keywords to bring high-value traffic to your e-commerce site. Or simply hire SEO consultants from a reputed SEO agency.

• Write attractive meta descriptions. 

A meta description is the 155 characters summarization of your entire web page. To put it simply, the purpose of meta descriptions is to summarize your web page’s content effectively. 

Your meta description will also help you decrease your bounce rate and get more traction on your site. All search engines, including Google, index, and rank your meta description based on factors like keyword placement. Thus, optimizing your meta description should be your top concern.

Here are some tips you can implement while creating an attractive meta description: 

• It should be at 155 characters. 
• It should be actionable. Write it in an active voice. 
• Add a call-to-action.
• Add the right keywords.
• It should match the content.
• It should be unique.

• Use videos and podcasts to engage your visitors.

The bounce rate usually increases when people don’t find your content interesting and exit your web page quickly without showing much interest. 

The key is to entice them and make them stay on your web page long enough to turn them into prospective customers. 

And the best way to do it is by adding videos and podcasts to your page!

By using video, you will be able to reduce your bounce rate and boost conversions. As per Google, nearly half of the online browsers search for product-related videos prior to visiting an online store.

Apart from that, video adds a dynamic element to brand storytelling. It can emotionally impact consumers and make them loyal buyers for years to come. 

Aside from embedding videos, you might also want to leverage audio as well. Powerful podcasts and audio clips can also increase visitors’ off-screen engagement with your brand.

• Resolve technical issues

Resolving site usability issues are a sure-fire way to improve your e-commerce bounce rate. If it is difficult for your visitors to navigate the site or click on items, it will result in a high bounce rate.

Some of the most common usability issues include:

• Sites not responding well on specific browsers or mobile.
• Technical issues like error 404.
• Broken links.
• Faulty drop-down menus.

You can conduct usability testing to detect these issues by using eye-tracking equipment, or you can also watch session recordings of how people interact with your app or site.

For instance, you can view session recordings of how users navigate your site. While at that, you can evaluate your pages with a high bounce rate and jot down the problems your visitors will most likely face. Then, you can focus on fixing the issues quickly.

Another way is to manually test the pages to check loading issues, wrong links, or errors on the desktop or mobile. Errors usually occur when you make changes on your site. Thus, it is crucial to test your pages every time you upload new products and content.

Resolve the issues by getting rid of broken links manually and swap them with correct ones. Optimize and update your plugins to see that they match well with your website themes. If you are unable to resolve the issues, you can take the help of your site developer.

• Engage abandoning visitors

No matter what you do to decrease your e-commerce bounce rate, there are going to be users who will abandon your site after clicking only one page. 

You can use tools like the Poptin tool that can track users when they are about to abandon your site and turn them into subscribers.

The tool has a feature that allows you to display a popup message as and when users abandon their shopping carts.

You can send customized offers that will boost both conversions and bounce rates. It also allows you to display subscription messages when visitors visit your site or are about to leave. 

Wrapping-Up

A high bounce rate is a common issue among e-commerce stores. However, by implementing the right strategies, you will be able to improve the bounce rate. 

Start by optimizing your product pages, increasing your site speed, implementing smart formatting to make your content more accessible, adding a single, clear Call to Action, using relevant keywords, etc. And once through with these tips, follow with writing attractive meta descriptions, using videos and podcasts, and resolving technical issues, and engage abandoning visitors. 

Lastly, but most importantly, focus on building trust with your visitors. Unless your customers trust you, they won’t buy from you. 

Remember, the more honest you are with potential clients, the more they’ll buy from you because they will like you.