Reducing bounce rate

David,

Cheesy picture in your header.

If you want to lower your bounce rate, add some relevant, instructional videos to compliment your pages and posts. Maybe videos that show how the DelMonte program works. Stress how easy it is. People are lazy. They want to know that they can get ripped abs while they eat chips and watch football. It is what it is.

I understand the desire to put pictures of you or whoever that is in your website theme, but I don't know if they help you or not. I would say that they do not but I could be wrong.

Videos, especially of you (social proof) will reduce the bounce rate.

Brendon

David - I personally like the look of the theme but the layout could perhaps be enhanced. However, there may be more than just the layout that's messing with your bounce rate. People tend to leave a site because at first glance, they can tell it doesn't have what they were hoping to find.

I'd spend some time looking at the keywords that are bringing your traffic, the page those visitors are landing on for that keyword, and whether or not the information that ties to that keyword search can easily be found on that page.

If someone does a search for "how to get six pack abs" and they land on your home page, do they have to search around for the answers? I see you have tabs for exercise, articles, and weight loss but where should a person start? Is there something you should put on your home page to take them by the hand and lead them where you want them to go next?

That's just an example, but as you're looking at your site layout your keywords and the behavior of visitors for those keywords might give you some clues.

The site reminds me of a basic text page and I am sorry to say that I would probably click away immediately when looking for a product in this niche.

I really think you would benefit from hiring a designer to help work with you on developing a new style for the site.

I've got a 15'ish inch laptop and I don't see any image above the fold but on 17" I can see part of that image. Just thinking of how to add some visual appeal until you can get more out of that header. Both laptops checked using Firefox and Chrome with minimal browser space on top and at the default zoom setting.

No, no, no - it's NOT bad! LOL! (Poor thing, we're going to give you a complex!)

I was just thinking a few striking images of great abs might be enough to keep people on the page long enough to see what else you have to offer. From personal experience, if I was looking up how to get six pack abs, I'd expect to see images of them all over the header and your title maybe laid over them. I'm thinking color and pizzazz BUT you can worry about that as you grow. Plenty of sites with nothing but a text header do a great job at keeping and converting traffic by capturing the visitor and guiding them through that funnel which is why I think that's more important at the moment.

My reaction to your site and some suggestions:

1) The color combination is hurting the eyes. Black and white are the strongest possible contrasting colors and on top of that the intensity of blue color is adding to the pain.

Suggestion: Make the background a pleasing blue for example #0066cc looks beautiful. Keep the foreground white and change the headline color also to #0066cc

2) Your theme is very dull and it's spreading all over the screen of my desktop monitor.

Suggestion: Change the theme or at least reduce it's width.

3) You have too much content on your home page which sort of overwhelms the reader and makes him run away. And since your whole article is complete on the same page, the visitor has no reason to click any other link except the back button.

Suggestion: Use less content and more no. of articles. Make use of "read more" links so that the reader is not overwhelmed and if he is really interested in your article he can click the "read more" link which will force him to visit your inner/secondary page. This will definitely decrease your bounce rate and will also increase your "no. of pages viewed" which is another important SEO factor.

4) Your site lacks beautiful images

Suggestion: Add some good looking pictures. Everyone loves nice pictures and videos they also help in reducing the bounce rate.

first impression , design is no good , doesn't seem like a body building website , if you want people to have a great first impression you need some nice attractive graphics that catchs their eyes !

A high bounce rate can mean many things.

1. They didn't find what they wanted so they left
2. They found what they wanted on the page they entered and then left
3. The quality of your content doesn't match expectations

You need to figure out WHY before you do anything.

And you need to look at what pages have what bounce rate. You need to make sure your navigation is easy so they can get to other pages.

A high bounce rate in and of itself means nothing, until you understand why.

Personally I sometimes WANT a high bounce rate on my money pages. Because I want to get them in then send them right back out to the offer.

According to Google bounce rate is the percentage of single page visits or visits in which the person has left your website from the landing or to say your squeeze page. In short, it tells how many people who arrive at your website and bounce out to another site. Stay above the fold as in the content should be visible in the user’s browser without having to scroll down. Make sure you have an easy to see and use the main menu. Provide internal linking to your readers.

I would agree for a website like this, the design needs to be 'sexier.' You are selling the sexier person, but don't have a sex website. A lot of white space on the side borders would be better or a picture of two ripped people.

Also I highly suggest a read next feature. I recommend both Outbrain and nRelate, but nRelate more.

David I am in a really hurry this am and dont have time to read all the thread, I just wanted to say I had a similar problem and there is a member here called Rosetrees.

She is not expensive and she transformed my site from an ugly difficult to navigate site to what is still a work in progress but is looking more beautiful everyday..... and the great this is she is a good teacher so Iam learning how to do a lot of the fixes myself too....... have a look at my site and I hope your bounce rate comes down. Mine has come down from over 70% to about 25% and she elimated all the spam too

What I saw was too much text on the first page, your content seems Ok enough though it could do better on reducing the size of the headings of the posts. The user has far too much scrolling to do just to get down to the bottom of the page. Your content is well written and may have the proper keywords but like I said there is too much to read on one page. If you made the number of posts on one page less and offered the "next" and "prevoius" buttons then it might work. Also you need to highlight your keywords make them bold or stand out from the rest of the text.