You must have seen bounce rate as one of the stats in your Analytics account. Actually this is the only figure which needs to be decreased. For all the other figures like page views, time on site etc. the bigger the better rule is applicable.
The bounce rate is a figure which do not have a direct effect on your Adsense income, but it has a long term effect on the growth of your website or blog.
Read : How does Google determine your search engine ranking ?
What is an ideal bounce rate ?
Anything below 50% is good and ideal bounce rate and a Bounce rate approaching 20% is magical and will definitely make you a valuable blog in eyes of search engines.
How to decrease your bounce rate ?
- Make your website or blog more engaging by placing related articles in the places where the article ends. Once the reader gets your point by reading your post fully he may click on another articles and will go to another page.
- Use most popular posts on your pages . It will let your first time users to have a look on whats popular on your blog. WordPress users can use Popular posts plugin.
- If still finding it difficult, use lesser ads on your pages. Stuffing your pages with ads creates an annoying experience for users and he may sway away.
- Use intriguing Titles for your posts. Its like saying the same things but in a way that it creates an urge to read.
For example : “how to increase your rss subscribers” may be written as “how i increased my rss subscribers by 400% in 2 weeks”.
- Decrease your page loading time of your website. If the page takes enough time to load , the users may get bored and he may close the browser. You are not only content producer in the whole world. There are billions of search results available for him. So try to decrease it.
- Put a search box on your blog at top positions. so that is a users come to your blogs and looks and realizes that this was not the thing he was looking for, he may search to find what he needs.
- Do interlinking of your posts. It means linking some related text inside your posts to appropriate pages.
- Do not make your meta description or title misleading. In an attempt to look artistic, bloggers try innovative Titles, which search engine users may not understand. This will bring misleading visitors which may bounce. Remember blogging will not give you booker prize anyway. You are not here to become shakespeare. You are here to bring useful content to your blog for making money. So , be straight forward.
For example: Lets say i am blogging for Dogs and write an article about ” how to create a good relationship with your pet”. If i make a title which says : the art of exploring hearts, who will come to your article. May be some heart patients.
Blog is not newspaper or magazine. In order to get found easily, you must write a Title which clearly engulf the motive of the post and thus bringing visitors which do not bounce.