5 Ways to Reduce Your Blog’s Bounce Rate

This is a guest post by Tom Walker.  If you want to become a guest blogger, click here to view my guidelines.

One of the tell-tale signs of how well your blog is doing is the bounce rate. When someone visits your site and then leaves without visiting another page is called a bounce. The bounce rate is the percentage of the total visitors who do this and it is an important figure in determining the value of your blog. No matter what you do, people are going to bounce and there are good and bad reasons for leaving a site. Some will leave because they found exactly what they needed right away. That is a good bounce, and they will tend to remember you because they trust you as a valued resource and are more likely to return at some time in the future. But the majority of visitors who leave do so because they have found an issue with your blog. Use these tips to reduce your bounce rate and increase earnings!

1. Fact Versus Opinion

One of the prime reasons visitors bounce is when it becomes evident that the writer is trying to pass off an opinion as fact – or just plain has his facts wrong. No matter how much you know about a subject, there is probably someone who knows more. They will immediately distinguish when a “fact” is, in actuality, an opinion and they will leave and never come back. If you distinguish what is fact – and back it up with references – and what is your opinion, your honesty will attract readers who appreciate your honesty and may even be engaged enough to leave comments.

2. Target and Focus

Nothing drives a visitor away faster than an unfocused blog. If you are all over the place, they will quickly lose interest. It is not only imperative to retain focus within the post itself, but throughout the entire site. Occasionally you may lose focus, but if 95% of your blog is narrow in vision, it will not only score well in search engines, but readers will begin to recognize you as an expert in your field. For example, instead of writing a blog on “electronics”, focus your site and your posts on specific subcategory like Blu-Ray players. You limit your audience, to be sure, but those that visit will appreciate the relevance and will be quality hits. One quality hit is worth a hundred random hits.

3. Navigation. Navigation. Navigation.

The first thing a student of web design learns is that the most important concept on the web is navigation. It does not matter how pretty your blog is. It does not matter how well you write. It does not matter how good the information available on your site is. If your visitors cannot find the information they want they will quickly become frustrated and leave. If you make it easy for them to find the exact information they seek, they are far more likely hang around to see what other tidbits of information you can to provide.

4. Blogging Is an Art, Not a Science

Think of it this way … writing is considered an art. Blogging is writing. If you cannot write, then your chances of building a popular blog are somewhere between slim and nil. Learn to write. Learn to write in your own “voice”. And keep it up until you get good.

5. If You Build It There’s No Guarantee They Will Come

That is, unless you look at your blog as a marketing piece – and that is exactly what it is. Whether you are marketing products, religion, philosophy, ideas, politics, etc., you are still marketing it. Like marketing, you need to target your audience, grab their attention, hold onto it for dear life, and don’t let go until you’ve sold them on what your wares. Just putting up a blog site is not enough. There are millions of blogs. Your site is a grain of sand in a very large beach. Anyone can write a blog – fewer do it well. But the fewest of all understand that what makes a blog work is an understanding of what attracts or repels readers. It is this understanding that creates the gap between successful blogs and the millions upon millions of failures.

This guest post was written by a British blogger by the name of Tom Walker. He works with an online store offering HP 57 inks, toners and refills. He runs a blog where he posts his thoughts on design and art.

Related posts:

1. 6 Ways To Effectively Increase Your Blog Post’s Open Rate
2. How Do I Keep Readers On My Blog? Guide Them!
3. 2 More Ways to Improve Blog Traffic in Minutes
4. 2 More Effective Ways To Resurrect Old Blog Content
5. Do You Use These Top 3 Ways to Monetize Your Blog?

Tagged as: analytics, blogger, Blogging, blogs, bounce rate, marketing

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