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How do improve bounce rate?

by Arran82
20 replies
I've heard and seen that google now takes into account bounce rate.....

I put up a post on reddit yesterday and my new site went from 10 visitors per day up to 700, looks like ill beat that today.

Problem is my bounce rate is like 90%. People are coming on, reading the article i have made (average stay 41 seconds) but are then hopping back to Reddit...how could I decrease this?
#bounce #improve #rate
  • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
    Google has ALWAYS taken into account bounce rates and that's why they have ALWAYS hated landing pages and other one-pager websites. They have simply denied it for a long time.
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  • Profile picture of the author mike gregory
    Try and give visitors a reason to stay on your site. Try adding a few links after your article to further related information maybe.
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    • Profile picture of the author bacardi
      Bounce rate is not all that bad if your an informational site, i.e. you answered the persons question, then you can expect this to be a little higher.

      A suggestion for you though:

      Include a really visible related content area, so a person landing on your page can easily see other things on your site which are closely related, if the visitor likes what your landing page offered then high chance they will click on something related.
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      • Profile picture of the author WittyT
        Exactly. One of the things I've noticed, for example, is that when I add a menu with the different categories of articles on my homepage, it cuts the bounce rate by 50% compared with a homepage with just an article on it.

        So show your visitors what they might like looking at next on your site. Guide them.

        Originally Posted by bacardi View Post

        Include a really visible related content area, so a person landing on your page can easily see other things on your site which are closely related, if the visitor likes what your landing page offered then high chance they will click on something related.
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        • Profile picture of the author bacardi
          Yeah was same for me, I never used anything related for a little while, big difference when I added also, think I was at one point way up at 80%, this was the early days, now I am on average 30-40% which I am pretty comfortable with, because a lot of my traffic seek the answer or solution to something, but then that is them off again.

          Originally Posted by WittyT View Post

          Exactly. One of the things I've noticed, for example, is that when I add a menu with the different categories of articles on my homepage, it cuts the bounce rate by 50% compared with a homepage with just an article on it.

          So show your visitors what they might like looking at next on your site. Guide them.
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          • Profile picture of the author shonny
            I think it also depends on your niche. If you are dealing with an affiliate marketing or something of sort, you will be sending visitors to merchant's site. You can expect high bounce rate in such a case.
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    • Profile picture of the author Malcolm Thomas
      Originally Posted by mike gregory View Post

      Try and give visitors a reason to stay on your site. Try adding a few links after your article to further related information maybe.
      This is what I would advise doing. link to relevant, related articles on your site to get your visitors to stay on your site longer.
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  • Profile picture of the author Danny Shaw
    There is a code you can put in your footer to trick the bounce rate. I use it on some websites and it does work. But use this kind of thing at your own risk.
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  • Profile picture of the author bacardi
    Also a slow website increases bounce rate, so make sure your site loads fast.

    Also when a page has been read etc make sure you tell the visitor what to do next, I tend to think of all the people who visit my site to be lost, and therefore I need to give them a virtual hand in the next direction they should be taking.

    If you don't guide people, then the easiest thing for them is to hit the back button or the red x at the top.
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  • Profile picture of the author KevL
    I agree the responses so far - but also don't forget to focus on targeting the right search terms, and making it as clear as possible in your page title & description, what the page is about, to ensure that targeted traffic is hitting your pages.

    One mistake i see fairly often is focus on search terms which have multiple meanings or applications, which means that some people will get to the page & realise it's not applicable to them, and bounce off. Another is focusing too generally. The more general your search term focus, the higher you can expect your bounce rate to be.

    Cheers
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  • Profile picture of the author Stevie C
    Depending on your site, sticking a few videos on the site might help as well as adding related pages links.
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    • Profile picture of the author ochaim
      If you're looking at traffic from reddit, I doubt Google will see anything from it, unless you have G-analytics set up.

      I noticed a drop in bounce rate once I added some related youtube stuff in the sidebar or the post itself.

      as well, as others have mentioned, providing some other links to answer "what else does this site have?" in the form of category links across the top, top visited post thumbnail in the sidebar (according to your site's stats).
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  • Profile picture of the author Edk
    You don't say how long your post is. An article that is fr arguments' sake over 500 words, is genuinely interesting - in other words it really does add value - accompanied by a photo as well as video as has been said, really should help matters.
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  • Profile picture of the author ralchevd
    It is all about the user experience on your website, and how attractive are represented the links between the articles in your website/specific page.

    Use inviting headings and images linking to other articles near the content (right sidebar for example - "recent articles"/"we also recommend").
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    • Profile picture of the author MP80
      Do what everyone else is doing lately, and install a plugin(?) to circumvent their browser's 'back' button. :rolleyes:

      Unfortunately, Google doesn't seem to be onto it (yet), since a large number of sites in their 1st page results are doing it (in my experience.)
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  • Profile picture of the author MisterMunch
    My thinking is that the problem is not a high "Bounce rate", but a low "time on site".

    Google used to have an "ignore resullts from this website" option (or something like that) when you hit the back button. The option was only available if the visitor stayed for less than 100 seconds (1 minut 40 sec). I believe this is their measure of how long a typical visitor should stay if they find something interresting, so my goal is to keep them for longer than 100 sec.

    You can edit your Analytics code to track when a certain number of seconds have passed.

    Also if a visitor click on an external link on your website, the google search algo will not know (unless you link to their SERP) and assume that the searcher found what she was looking for.
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  • Profile picture of the author rolough
    1) Engaging Content
    2) Pictures
    3) VIDEOS! (Most important...people love to stay on a site and watch vids)
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  • Profile picture of the author Heart Cardio
    Add some more interesting content to your site. Give your traffic a reason to want to stay. Add some interesting facts or tidbits of info, or add a few images that will spark their interest.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stuart Walker
    If you're just sending random, untargeted, traffic to your site then your bounce rate WILL be high. If it's targeted traffic and they are still bouncing then you need to do more to keep them on page, sprinkle links to related content throughout your article, have suggested / related content at the bottom of each article (there are WP plugins for that), at the bottom of the article instruct them to do something else (like you on FB, read another article, sign up to your list etc), have your side bars have related content / categories showing.
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