Reducing Blog Bounce Rate

[Nathan]

I've been experimenting with ways to reduce my blog's bounce rate, the rate of people who visit and only view a single page. I think that such visits are failures, because I failed to attract the visitor enough that he/she wanted to see more of my content.

I know that a few months ago I was bragging of a bounce rate of like 7%. I found the cause of this. It was due to an ajax widget that I was using. Basically it automatically loaded new pages and therefore gave a false bounce rate report.

Anyway, after removing it I found that my real bounce rate was about 87%. I've been working on this for a month and have got it down to 77%.

I'm trying a couple new widgets to put related post links at the bottom of my posts, and a better navigation system at the bottom of the blog pages.

Does anyone have any ideas about how to increase page views per visitor? How do you attract visitors to view more than one page of your content?

[flashgordon]

This is really a hard question to answer. Many times the bounce rate is high simply because what they were looking for was not found. You can put in various features, such as sidebar navigation, a related post/article feature at the bottom of your articles, a search feature (all of which I have). It helps, but if the person is looking for something specific, and Google sends them to your page, but it does not have what they are looking for, many people will just re-Google rather then use your own navigation.

Now, if you develop your site into more of a "brand" then simply a conglomeration of pages, people are usually more likely to use all those helpful navigation features. This takes time, but over the long run it should pay off and keep people on your site. How you develop your site/blog as a "brand" is always tricky.

I'm working on this for my sites, trying to become a known site/voice in my niche so that people will inter-navigate my site. It is working, but it definitely takes time and more effort.

[Sneakyheathen]

To reduce bounce rates you can use "specific linking." Which is defined here:
What is Specific Linking? | Freelance Pirate

The idea is simply, when blog commenting, link to RELEVANT POSTS as opposed to your homepage. The same idea for signatures and emails and such. This will help you get visitors to the right pages and reduce your bounce rate

[Nathan]

That's good advice Flash Gordan. I'm trying to increase the name recognition of my blog. It would definitely nice for it to be a known "brand."

To reduce bounce rates you can use "specific linking."

I'll check out the link...

[Upton]

As a beginner, I hadn't even thought about this - but I think it's a nice thing to have on the radar. Thanks for brinigng it up and for everyone who responded.

[Bloggeries]

It's a double edged sword. Here's what I mean.

If I wanted a low bounce rate I'd work strictly on search engine traffic matching quality content to specific queries... Maybe even creating content that would match those queries to a tee. Supposedly Google is working on a new algorithm that incorporates relevancy (ya above my head too but supposedly not just text but how well a page actually answers the query lol) but that said if you want to reduce your bounce rate just reduce your social media traffic for the most part.

If I were to reduce say some twitter, Plurk (when I was using it) and other social media promotion I"m sure my bounce would decrease but so would my overall visitors. The thing is you never know when someone from a social media site may end up loving it so that is why I still push on those venues.

That said Nathan; what percentage of your current traffic is from social media sites? Also what % is from engines if I may ask?

[~kev~]

Post more videos and images. Videos cause people to stop, watch the video and then continue. Images can do the same thing, but take less time to view as compared to videos.

[Tolemac]

I agree with kev about putting up images and video. Once I did that and some other things, my BR went down to 64.50% from 89%, so I call that a win.

I like the idea of specific linking and will do that the next time I'm replying to other blogs in my niche. Speaking which, flashgordon is right when he talks about branding. That definitely gets people to stick around. My average time on site according to google analytics is 3:45 minutes. Again I consider that a win.

[msjohal]

I also agree and think Kev has a point about more videos and images. Another thing you may want to add is a tag cloud - this makes it easy for people view posts on your blog that relate to a particular subject.

[Tolemac]

msjohal, I know what you are saying about using a tag cloud, but to be honest, I removed mine from my widgets, and ended up with a better BR than when it was visible.

I may have to experiment with it and see how it goes over a stretch of time.