Extremely high bounce rate on my site -- why?

[Matt281]

Everything in terms of traffic seems to be going great, but I somehow have like 92% of people leaving my site within the first 30 seconds. This is strange to me since most of my stuff is significantly higher quality than most of the IM bull**** you find on the net.

The only things I can think of would be:

1. Site still uses wordpress 2011 theme and doesn't look terribly professional, although it does look pretty good.

2. The two articles of mine that draw most of the traffic are only about 400 words each. Maybe people just skim them and leave?

What are the best ways to fix this? Should I expand the articles that draw more traffic, or put more emphasis on clicking other pages? Or try a different theme and flush out the look of the site a bit more?

Also, how is this likely to effect adsense? Is it likely people will click ads when they leave quickly? I guess it's impossible to know for sure.

Any ideas?

[mosthost]

What is the source of the traffic? Is it all people from search engines?

[dadamson]

Hi Matt,

The version of Wordpress will not make a difference.

It is all about your theme, quality of writing, and most importantly, revelvance of your content to your keywords.

If people are typing "free dog info" and you are talking about a $10 book about dogs, people will click the back button right away.

The bounce rate is the number of people who stay on your page for more than 30 seconds. - Have you got enough content to keep people there for that long?

I would spark up your page, encourage people to visit other pages on your site, and ensure your content is closely related to the keywords people are finding your site with.

Aim to get bounce rate below 50% and keep it below 40% if possible.

High bounce rate will actually hinder your rankings in Google too.

Dave Adamson

[Danielle Lynn]

Dave has some excellent points.

Beyond that, how clearly is your site laid out?

If it's not immediately clear to the visitor where they should be clicking to get the information they're looking for, then they're more likely to leave.

Are the ads overtaking your site? Does it make the content hard to read?

Apart from these general tips and questions, unless I look at the site, I can't tell you what's going on there.

[coolag]

Hi

try this

1. Add Images

2. Add Videos

also you should check the bounce rate of other sites in your niche to see how they compare.

[Mildred Williams]

Hi Matt; you should add more valuable content then people will spend more time on your site.

[Matt281]

Thanks guys. I guess I should give a little more detail. 99% of my traffic is search engine traffic. I actually don't have any sort of adds up yet as I wanted to get some good traffic beforehand, but I applied for adsense a few days ago.

Originally Posted by dadamson

Hi Matt,

The version of Wordpress will not make a difference.

It is all about your theme, quality of writing, and most importantly, revelvance of your content to your keywords.

If people are typing "free dog info" and you are talking about a $10 book about dogs, people will click the back button right away.

Thanks for the detailed reply. The weird thing is I think I'm pretty good on all this stuff. I have an informational site with about a dozen well-written, well-researched 400-1200 word articles on it that specifically answer the question asked by the searcher.

A close example would be someone searching for "what do brake pads do" and my article breaks it down and tells them.

What I meant about wordpress is that I have the default "wordpress 2011" theme, which is rather bland and standard.

The bounce rate is the number of people who stay on your page for more than 30 seconds. - Have you got enough content to keep people there for that long?

I think so, although it's not well set up to navigate to another article after reading the first. Each article is at least 400 words though.

I would spark up your page, encourage people to visit other pages on your site, and ensure your content is closely related to the keywords people are finding your site with.

Aim to get bounce rate below 50% and keep it below 40% if possible.

Yeah I guess the main thing to do is to "spark up the page" as you say, although I guess it's possible that people are just skimming the 400 word articles in less than 30 seconds.

I really have virtually no knowledge of good website design though. Virtually all my learning/efforts have been directed towards driving traffic and producing quality content.

Originally Posted by Danielle Lynn

Dave has some excellent points.

Beyond that, how clearly is your site laid out?

If it's not immediately clear to the visitor where they should be clicking to get the information they're looking for, then they're more likely to leave.

Are the ads overtaking your site? Does it make the content hard to read?

No ads yet, white background, pretty clear as far as I can see. Since it's all search engine traffic, they get taken right to the page that answers their question =/

Apart from these general tips and questions, unless I look at the site, I can't tell you what's going on there.

This may be a long shot, but any chance you'd be willing to? (I can't send PMs before I have 50 posts though, and I don't want to link to my site on this forum).

Thanks again guys.

[dadamson]

Why don't you tell us your site here then?

From what you stated above I would change two things right now.

Your theme. You are using the standard Wordpress default theme. There is no reason why you shouldn't have a better theme installed. If you installed Wordpress you are more than capable in switching themes.

Google "free wordpress themes" or variations of that and sift through something you like. Install it and test your site, if it looks good keep it, if not, move on.

Just get that damn bland theme out of there!

Second thing, ensure you have a clear call to action. Whether you are getting people to view more articles or link through to your offers. Ensure your visitors are CLEAR on what they should do next.

Post your URL here, I will take a look.

Dave

[Matt281]

Thanks. I'd actually rather not post the site here, but I'd be happy to send you the link if you PM me your email (I can't send PMs until 50 posts).

I'll work on the theme/call to action regardless though.

[Rankomatic]

Yes I agree with what has been written here but here are some extra things to consider...

1. Check your stats and see if they are real visitors or bot visits
2. Is the keyword correct eg: the keyword "Life Quotes" can be both people
looking for insurance and quotes about life
3. Perhaps they are mobile users as so many are these days. Can your site be
viewed from a mobile device ? iPhone and Android

Here is an easy way to test to see if your offers are good enough..

Make a small ad about 500 x 200, you can use a free program like x header pro to do this.

On it you want to put the most amazing offer ever that relates to your product like "get it here for free now, just click here.

Then make the graphic a link to a CB product (similar if you can to your site) Then simply check how many hops you are getting over the first 24hrs.

It's a great way to tell if you have got the right traffic coming to your site.

[Matt281]

Danielle I just sent you an email. Thanks

[Gary M.]

Yeah, change your theme. Also put up some video pages to make them stick around longer. These could even be YouTube vids.

[msm24]

Originally Posted by Matt281

Everything in terms of traffic seems to be going great, but I somehow have like 92% of people leaving my site within the first 30 seconds. This is strange to me since most of my stuff is significantly higher quality than most of the IM bull**** you find on the net.

You may want to try changing up the type of content you have on the primary landing page.

If you are in a market that's demographic is generally people who don't like to spend time on their computer reading then you may want to try posting a video above the fold to hold their attention a little longer. You could even make it just a small 45 second greeting video and explain what they are going to learn while encouraging them to read on.

If that doesn't work then they may be landing on your site from typing in a broad phrase that you rank highly for but are not really optimized for. They may be landing on your site and just realizing that it was not what they were looking for. You can remedy that by adding a post that caters to the search queries that get your traffic to your site.

[Monty Montana]

Add more words to your articles. A video and pictures would definitely help. But most important thing is, you need to change your theme. Tweak them a bit to make it look professional. This should help.

Good luck.

[Matt281]

Thanks guys. I'd be surprised if it's any of the little stuff - maybe it is the theme.

It's just really strange though. Given that I've got quality content on their, no ads and my articles answer the question being asked, there shouldn't be any reason why people aren't staying at least a minute or two.

[visimedia]

yes, not relevant content will increase bounce rate surely. I agree with that. The best application is to see a website content in the eyes of visitors which is the hardest part of any internet marketers who prioritize 'make money' in the first place.

It's give and take, not take and give...

Hope it helps

[trishacupra911]

Did you end up changing your theme? Did it make a difference?

[Matt281]

Yeah I completely revamped the site. Looks much more professional now.

Bounce rate improved a little, but still pretty bad. Average time on site is 106 seconds but something like 80% of people are leaving in the first 10 seconds. This makes absolutely no sense to me, since that would mean 80% of people who are asking a question are leaving a legit-looking site with a well-written post answering their question...Hmm.

[UpMarketing]

High bounce rates have to do with content that is not targeted in general terms.

[Ronno99]

^ UpMarketing is right on

Visitors bounce or quickly click away if they don't see what they are looking for. Sounds obvious but that should be your starting point in figuring out what to do about it.

[Matt281]

Yeah if you read the thread, all my traffic is from search engines and my posts answer the exact question being asked.

[Letsurf]

Have you looked at your google analytics to view where the high bounce rate is coming from? You can have a higher bounce rate on your overall site that is caused by one or two pages that have a higher than average bounce rate. I would look deeper to find out exactly where the high bounce is coming from and then focus on that page or article.

[leilaleilei]

I would suggest that you focused on how your content looks at the reader. Maybe they are not satisfied of how your content looks, i mean if the content is too long and it seems that reading one is some kind of boring. Perhaps you can go of creating content similar to pointing at great points at the story, e.g.,

♥use bullet to point out interesting part of your content
♥Use sub titles that your readers may point out how the story of your content goes
♥adding related images or videos on the specific content
♥Somehow add some funny quotation that will make your readers come back to your content or they somehow remember your content.


With regards to your site theme, preferably it would be more catchy to readers if it doesn't look like mess and looks more professional. Get a cool more look into your site.

[Loloy Diango]

Maybe you have 404 error pages? These could hugely affect the over all bounce rate of your site.

Check your Google webmaster reports and see if there are 404 error pages on your site.