Surefire Way To Lower Bounce Rates

For a while there it seemed like the more visits I got the higher my bounce rates soared. My site was getting more bounce then a load of laundry. ( Insert cricket sound effect here.) I sprang into action and implemented a few surefire changes that lowered my bounce rates by 20% (the lower the number the better). If they worked for me, they will certainly work for you. A bounce occurs when a web site visitor only views a single page on a web site and leaves a site without visiting any other pages. It’s a good way to tell if your site is keeping your visitor’s attention. A 50% bounce rate is considered OK. 30% is considered excellent.

Add A Related Posts Link

The first thing I did was install a plugin called YARPP. That’s short for Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. YARPP gives you a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site. What I really like about this plugin is that it gives great control over display options and match criteria.

Showcase Your Popular Articles

Adding a featured posts section to my sidebar made a big difference in my bounce rates. Like the related post plug in, it required little to no effort to implement. I find that readers are very likely to click on a link that others have deemed useful or informative. The hardest part was finding a decent plugin that worked well. I used Category Posts Widget 2.0. It allows you to showcase a specific category. It’s great because it gave me total control over what to feature. I simply added a category called popular articles and allocated a few hand picked post to showcase. If you want to add thumbnails to your featured post you can also install the simple-post-thumbnails plugin.

Design Matters

Not everyone is going to agree with me on this one. Some of the most popular sites on the internet are poorly designed. I find that these sites are the exception. Good design adds credibility to your web site. Unfortunately people do judge a book by it’s cover. And they will judge your site as well. I added a clean minimal home page to my site and found that it helped bring my bounce rates down. Design matters! Imagine that.

Don’t Up-Chuck

99% of blogs are regurgitating information from another source. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not knocking this. I’m guilty of it myself. I think it’s good only in moderation. The most popular category on my site is the Step by Step Design section. There I share my design process with the world. When it comes to keeping readers captivated, I find that original content is king. If you ran into compelling content on a popular web site, chances are other people did to. So write something that adds value.