How to Reduce Bounce Rate on Your Blog

As a blogger you might have a high bounce rate, which might be completely acceptable depending on your type of content and demographic. But, it is a good idea to accept that your website/blog or content might not be as engaging as you think. You might be under the illusion that you’re producing the right engaging type of content but Google analytics might tell a different story. You love your website so why doesn’t everyone else? Sometimes there’s no amount of organic SEO that can help the bounce rate.

You might ask yourself what is a good bounce rate? Some people might think a bounce rate of 80% is amazing whereas others might believe that it is detrimental to their brand. This usually just depends on your site, your preferences and business goals. Many site managers pay a very close eye on the bounce rate as this can be an indication of a sites advantages and disadvantages. Some people believe that bounce rate can influence your search ranking which is very troublesome to web managers.

Alongside bounce rate there is also time on page metric, this is an estimate of how long an average user has spent on a given page. This is only an estimate because Google Analytics requires two clicks to accurately calculate the time on the page. One is the entrance click which brings a user to the page and an exit click that takes them away from the page. Sometimes the exit click is missed from the equation. Have you ever spent time reading a page and closing the tab or browser, this will not be recorded as an exit click. Some users might have thoroughly enjoyed your page and left satisfied but because the exit click wasn’t recorded, the session was logged as a bounce.

Here are a few ways in which you can reduce bounce rates on your blog:

• Some marketers believe that website SEO or the page content is to blame for a high bounce rate. Serious problems can arise before a user has even had a chance to read the page. As a user we can all agree that when a website takes ages to load it is extremely frustrating. 47% of users expect the web page to load in two seconds or less. In this quick paced world that we live in, we want information on the go so a lag with the website and people will just move onto the next regardless of how good the blog SEO is.

• It can be very discouraging to discover an immense, intimidating wall of text when you enter a blog. Even if the content is incredibly valuable and unique it won’t matter if they can’t keep their eyes open. Formatting your page to make it look welcoming and accessible is one of the best ways to reduce the bounce rate.

People don’t want to work when they are browsing so don’t overwhelm them with big paragraphs. You need to be able the audience to scan or skim your content whilst finding the information that they require. Make sure you also don’t dumb it down too much as this can be as annoying as chunky texts.

• We have all been on pages where there are so many sidebars that it is distracting from the page. Blogs are a perfect place for offering relevant content, offers and other materials to your audience. You need to make sure you use them sparingly as they can overwhelm and tempt to bounce from your page. Always be careful of the types of pop ups offered by services, they are highly effective but very much distracting. Give the users enough time to invest their time to the blog before being hit with the promotions from the sidebar.

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