Decrease in visit % and increase bounce rates, oh my!

[kendrickyi]

Hey everybody. I'm in serious need of help.

I am facing a serious traffic problem for my website, and my bounce rate is increasing.

According to Google Analytics, I haven't had any visitors to my blog for nearly a month! (Very disturbing news indeed) However I'm not sure if the stats are accurated because

1) I visit my blog daily
2) Someone commented on my blog post during that time

¿Qué Pasa? Why do I have 0 visits when someone just commented on my blog? It wasn't a trackback (I don't think so anyway).

The problem I face is that sometimes I have no idea what to blog about. I figured that maybe the reason for the increased bounce rate is because I don't blog the right stuff. But I don't know what to blog about.

And I have a feeling I need to change my squeeze page a lot because it seems extremely noob to me.

Here is my blog Unlock Secrets To Wealth
and squeeze page Unlock The Secrets To Wealth!

P.S. I know I've made a number of mistakes in various areas (just that I don't know all the mistakes that I made), so I appreciate correction. I want to learn from my mistakes, so help me out here please.

[Curleyjohn]

Provide more specific information. Blog what you have learned. Give from the heart and then give some more.

[kendrickyi]

Originally Posted by lumbardi

Yesterday, as I was checking stats of a website that I manage, I decided to take a closer look at the bounce rate and percentage of new visitors. The bounce rate wasn't hateful (39%), but could definitely be improved. Realizing that this site gets lots of StumbleUpon traffic, I wondered if the (higher than desired) bounce rate could be due to random traffic from SU.

Fortunately, Google Analytics allowed me to view the days that showed higher than normal SU traffic and compare the bounce rate on those days with the average bounce rate for the month. On the days with higher SU traffic, the bounce rate was still within 2% of the monthly average, which was reassuring. It confirmed to me that most of the people that promote this particular site on SU actually visit, read, and recommend the site to others, because they are interested in the subject matter and not just because I friended them or because they are trying to help me out.
How did I accomplish this? I spent time networking with people in that niche market, developing relationships with them, and Stumbling and promoting their sites (at SU and in other venues), which set me up to receive Stumbles and reviews in return when I needed them. Also, when I Stumbled articles from this particular site, I only sent it to those in my network that were interested in the topic and were subsequently connected to others in the same niche. Had I spread out my submissions randomly across multiple social media sites or sent it to all of my SU friends, I don't believe that I would have gotten the same results. Perhaps the same amount of traffic, perhaps more, but most likely with a higher bounce rate and a lower conversion rate.
If you haven't done this exercise yet, it might be eye opening. Perhaps you can tweak your social media campaign accordingly to get more targeted traffic. If your analytics tool does not give you your bounce rate, I recommend implementing Google analytics, which is free and can give you a second perspective on your user data and traffic. I know I mentioned the "percentage of new visitors" statistic in the intro, but I will leave that for another post -- expect something from me next week.

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I am using Google Analytics.

I don't really have a social media campaign. I'm not very familiar with that. Yes I have a Twitter, but I find it difficult to follow the people who are in my target audience, mainly because most of them tweet using Twitterfeed or APIs or their tweets are scheduled, so they're like robots to me.

Another reason is, most of the people I've found in my niche are merchants, not so much affiliates, or people with a problem who need a solution.

I'm only using Twitter to get some street cred.


P.S.
I notice that my squeeze page has gotten more traffic than my blog. 1 reason, I guess, is because my articles in ezinearticles, goarticles, articledashboard, etc, are linked to my squeeze page, while only my Twitter gets linked to my blog.

So I'm deducing that if I want to get more visitors to my blog, I should either include both the link to the squeeze page and blog in my resource box, or just a link to my blog in the resource box.

(I want to get more visitors on my blog because I wanna put Adsense ads on it)

P.P.S.
I have a StumbleUpon account, but I don't login regularly. I only login to bookmark my blog entries. I don't share it with anybody because I didn't add anybody as a friend.

[bgmacaw]

A few things...

1. Get rid of the stupid right click blocker. It is ineffective when the visitor is using Firefox anyway.

2. Looking at your source after bypassing the blocker, you don't seem to have Google Analytics installed. That would explain why you don't see any results. It is installed on your squeeze page but not the blog.

3. Your blog is, well, ugly as in ugly plain. This is the kind of theme I like to use for dull, boring, Adsense niche sites. But, I'd guess you want to make this site a flagship site, so, you need a better looking, more attractive theme.

4. The squeeze page is also plain and uninspiring.

[kendrickyi]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

A few things...

2. Looking at your source after bypassing the blocker, you don't seem to have Google Analytics installed. That would explain why you don't see any results. It

that's weird. i recall installing the code using the WP plugin. i don't understand. i put the analytics account ID in the text area so it should be installed.

do you know where to get WP themes for free? or at least, is there a website where i can generate a better looking WP theme for free? (my WP theme was done on a WP theme generator site)

i'm reluctant to pay for a theme.

some of my friends understand just basic php so they can't hep much.

edit: oops. my bad.
i just saw the "Free WordPress Themes" on your sig.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by kendrickyi

edit: oops. my bad.
i just saw the "Free WordPress Themes" on your sig.

Don't use them for your flagship blog. They're designed for niche affiliate style blogs unless you modify them a lot.

If you aren't confident in your web design and coding skills you may find it better to go with a solid customizable paid theme like Thesis or using a templating system like Artisteer to create a unique theme for your flagship site. Using a free theme is OK, there are a lot of good ones out there, but if you're wanting to build a personal brand it's best to make it unique to you in some way.

[kendrickyi]

Originally Posted by viteshb

Create TrafficDiagram, that way you can use process testing to make sure what traffic works and what is not. then keep testing and testing until you know what works the best and converts the best. also i heard alot of people talking about stumbleupon traffic not being great. I agree but still there is a way to monitize them, put a exit pop-up! and catch those who are interested! this works great for me, build a relationship through your email newsletters and do some back end selling.

Traffic Diagram in Google Analytics? how to?

[kendrickyi]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

Don't use them for your flagship blog. They're designed for niche affiliate style blogs unless you modify them a lot.

If you aren't confident in your web design and coding skills you may find it better to go with a solid customizable paid theme like Thesis or using a templating system like Artisteer to create a unique theme for your flagship site. Using a free theme is OK, there are a lot of good ones out there, but if you're wanting to build a personal brand it's best to make it unique to you in some way.

ok. my coding skills are fine. i've done css and a few other programming languages. however i didn't learn php in school so i'll have to play around a lot. i can download your WP themes and give the editting a try.