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How do you drive bounce rate down?
Posted by iratedog • 10/09/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: bounce rate
Ok, Timethief this is for you cus I know you'll go away, research it thoroughly then come back here with an answer that blows all the others out of the water, so here goes:
According to Google my average bounce rate over the entire life of my blog is 61%, for the past 30 days it's averaged out at 64%. This clearly isn't the trend I'm going for.
My question: what techniques can I use to try to lower my bounce rate? And also, my blog being a blog all the newer posts (the last 5 I think) are on the front page. Does this drive bounce rate up?
Obviously I'm not wanting ONLY TT to answer, I want all the answers I can get!
User Comments
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*ding* can anyone help? come on TT don't let me down now...
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I see you people viewing but not helping...speak!
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I haven't a clue -- sorry. -
pop ups. So many that it slows down the computer so much that they have no choice but to stay on your page longer!-
When I read this title, I automatically thought of what I said earlier again. So this is still a very good idea.
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64% is pretty good.-
is it? excellent! I want to set a target of 45% thought I think...
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I don't have an idea of what is a good bounce rate to have. All I know is that trying below 15% and you're going into impossible land, and over 80% is very bad. My blog stands at 76%.-
bounce rate is all about having content that is interesting enough for visitors to delve deeper into the site. several ways to drop your bounce rate are
1. use a "related posts" footer, this draws a reader further into the blog with interesting content on the subject that they are obviously interested in.
2. convert your highest traffic posts to links in your side bar using a "popular posts" widget
3. write serialized posts, don't tell the whole story at once! then be sure that your "related posts" footer points them on to the other posts so that an incoming readers will follow the trail through all the posts and get the whole story.
4. Buy your artwork! it's a buck a pop people and you can get it from istockphoto.com Good photos can make or break your blog. If you have great content and horrible artwork the blog is just not as awesome to visit...
5. Cut down clutter to a minimum, get rid of silly widgets, make sure to provide plenty of empty space around your text so that readers don't feel crowded when they are reading.
6. TimeThief says this all the time and its true... "write original interesting content" If your content is good enough it will attract readers to get involved and make comments.
hope that helps...
edit- oh and my bounce rate averages around 50% to 55% with some dips down to 33% in the last few months my all time average from january to now is 65%... I had a few really bad months early in the year
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jason, good article, can i steal it? -
Hey Jason. I see you use a huge list of sharing links at the bottom of each of your posts on your blog. Do people actually use these links? I have never used one on a web page, yet I use all of the sharing sites listed. I kind of want to add them to my page, but I also think my page is fairly cluttered as it is. If it's not worth it, then I won't bother. What should I do? -
@AG... thanks! and no! oh go ahead somebody else probably has anyways!
I can't use it on my blog really.. my readership would be "wha!?"
Larry,
people do occasionally use the links.. my goal is to give them every opportunity to share regardless... mostly the twitter links are used... I would give anything for some diggs or stumbles.. I guess my content just doesn't hit the spot for "sharableness"
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My bounce rate has been consistently around 25% for the past 6 months. Here are some tips:
1 - Target the right audience. If you promote your blog make sure you're addressing readers that are really concerned by your site's content. All extra traffic will only contribute to raise your bounce rate and waste server resources.
2 - Have good content. People will only stay on your blog if they are encouraged to by attractive content.
3 - Update often. Frequent visitors will look for more pages if they know that you have an history of frequent updates.
Hope this helps.-
25%? That's insanely good! And thanks for the tips, I'll look into them.
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Thank everyone! I think I have some ideas now. My target will be an average of 40% a month by the end of the year I think.
Thanks again! -
According to Director of Research & Analytics at Intuit, Avinash Kaushik, under 75% is not unusual for a blog. (Blog bounce rates are to be viewed differently than other sites). He has written an excellent article here: www.kaushik.net/avinash/2007/08/standard-metrics-revisited-3-bounce-rate.ht.... The bounce rate of my new blog is around 50% but I'm not on the search engines yet and I question the quality of the traffic of the sites I do advertise on. Sometimes its poor quality traffic as much as it is the site itself. -
- Related Posts at the bottom of your post
- Links to other (relevant) articles inside your posts
- Get quality inbound links (and thus traffic). StumbleUpon can be great to get massive traffic, but only quick lookers, no readers (thus high bouncerate).
- Generally have GREAT content
- Put "Top 5 Articles" lists in your sidebar.-
So true about StumbleUpon. So very true.
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On blogger, would it help to get rid of the built in nav bar to decrease bounce rate?
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Remove your blog from incentivised sources:
1) Link Exchanges such as Entrecard, Adgitize, and CMF Ads
2) Traffic Exchanges such as EasyHits4U, NeoBux, YouCubez, and ClickThru
Source Blogger
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