Mayday Solution #1 – Start Fixing Bounce Rates!
Having a few sites being affected by the Google Mayday Update, I’m going to do my best to remain positive and look for solutions, versus loathing on the negatives and complaining about the lost traffic.
One of those positives I have found in the short several-day span… is that my reduced flow of traffic is converting MUCH BETTER! Someone is going to slap me for this… but it’s almost like Google is HELPING me! (Damn… I slapped myself, and I liked it!!)
With that in mind… I want to pick one site, and:
- Find the Most Popular Pages with Highest Bounce Rates, and Reduce them!
- Optimize The Funnel for a Second Click to the Money Pages!
- STOP Clicking on the Pages Myself!
I also want to say… what I am doing is nothing new… I just have to do it more often, and for a slightly different reason! :-) and before someone chimes in that sending a visitor to a second page on your own site may hurt your earnings, it’s truly up to you to decide which is more important for your own site and goals! IMHO – this new algo is some serious stuff that is going to learn as it goes! What you rank #1-5 for today, may just change tomorrow!
Not what you were hoping for? Try these other recent articles…
Mayday Solution #1 – Fix High Bounce Rates!
Ask yourself… even if Google denies it’s using bounce rate as a ranking factor (they are, and always have) isn’t it really more of a visitor experience issue? I mean, if the visitor comes to the site and clicks off <aka bounces> the page, what good was it for the visitor. That’s like having a store on the corner, and [yourbounceratehere] % of the people walking in, turn around and walk right back out!
First – What is a Bounce?
You are not going to like the answer… Anyone who leaves your site, without clicking to a second page, is a bounce. Period. Whether that person came to your site, watched 16 videos on your single page, read a book, whatever… if they didn’t click to another page, they bounced! (Kinda puts the idea of a landing page for specific search visitors to shame huh?)
From Google:
Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page). Bounce rate is a measure of visit quality and a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance (landing) pages aren’t relevant to your visitors.
What’s a High Bounce Rate and How to Spot Problems?
Who knows what an ideal rate is… some people say 50%, others say 75%, even others say anything above 25% is high!
For the case of this exercise, I am simply starting with anything higher than 50% thats popular in search. The premise being… get in front of the highest impact objects first, and work my way back!
In Google Analytics:
1 – Left Menu > Click on Traffic Sources
2 – Left Menu > Click on Search Engines
3 – Content Results Area > Click on Google
So… What do you see now?
(Sorry for all the blurred out stuff… I have learned lessons)
I can see the Keyword, the landing page, and Bounce rate (I deleted other stuff in between)
- My Highest Volume (491 times) Key-phrase – has a 76% bounce! (That sucks!)
- 3rd highest volume (173 times) phrase, 69% bounce! (That sucks too!)
What really caught my eye however, is that the 6th-20th, which account for quite a bit more volume than 1-5 combined, has a HUGE bounce rate on each page!
Just to be fair also – there are instances where the same page was blurred out for more than 1 instance of key-phrase.
How to Decrease the Bounce Rate
Now comes the fun part… finding ways to keep the visitor on the site, or at least getting them to click to one more page before leaving. On pages 1 & 3, it won’t be too hard… they are not even pages that sell anything! I can manually edit the article and drop in a group of alternates right after the first paragraph or two, right about the time the visitor is getting bored with the content, and encourage them to read on a vertical subject!
7 Tips to reduce bounce rate
- Address the Issue! Don’t Sit back and Hope it will Fix Itself! (Hint: It Won’t)
- Make One Small Change at a Time – Measure its Effectiveness!
- Split Test Page Layout, so you Can Actually KNOW What’s Working!
- Review your Navigation and Help Visitors find Related Content Easily!
- Rebuild your Content Display and put Related Links Closer to the Top (Catch the bounce)
- Make sure the landing Page is Answering the Search Questions (Check terms driving traffic to pages)
- Put Onsite Links higher in the content, Offsite links… lower in the content.
- STOP Clicking on Single Pages of Your Own Site When Found in Search! You Might just be your OWN Worse Enemy!
What Other Tips do You Have?
I have a few plugins I use to show related content… and will talk about different ways I am using them in a new post! :-)
What do YOU do to reduce bounce rate?
Previously Published Articles You May Like to Read:
- Mayday Solution #2 – Check Your Backlink Strategy!
- Digging Through the Noise Surrounding Caffeine and Mayday
- Google Mayday Update and SERP Changes
Like it on Facebook
Rate This Post
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
I have been doing my part to "Build the Internet" since 1994, when I built my first website! Since then, I have built hundreds of niche websites for myself and many others, focused on design, applications, ecommerce, search optimization and internet marketing.
Great tips, Mark. Now if my readers come to my site and click on an outbound link (to another website), does it count as a bounce?
@Anand Srinivasan – Yes.
ANY click, including the X in the upper right corner, unless it lands on YOUR SAME SITE, is a bounce!
– User comes from search, reads article, clicks off to affiliate link = BOUNCE!
– User comes from search, reads 21,000 words for 45 minutes, and clicks the back button = BOUNCE!
– User comes from search and watches 30 minutes of video, clicking each one to make it start = BOUNCE!
The ONLY action that is NOT a bounce, is a click to another page on the same site.
Sad… but true!
As long as they bounce to an aff link isn’t that a good thing. After all that is why we are here to make money ..right. If a reader or visitor comes to a site and only clicks deeper into the site and never clicks a aff link, other than a great read for the visitor then what good is the site to him or him to me?? I hope that makes some sense… thanks
@otis – I know exactly what you are saying Otis…
What if a search engine sends 100 visitors to a very targeted page of XYZ Shoes, and 100 of them are bounces though?
Google sees a 100% bounce rate…
It might be better to remove products from the landing page > funnel the visitors to a second ONSITE page > then send them to the offer.
ie: Build a Sales Funnel.
- Catch the visit with the bait (good content)
- Send them to the sales page (page of links to aff program)
- Grab the sale and reduce the bounce.
Keep in mind… its all just speculation on my part right now, but just one of the things I am finding.
M
Oh, so as long as the main page or home page sends the visitor to an internal page then the inside page sends to the aff link, the home page then has less of a bounce rate.which is good in G’s eyes. is that right??
@Mark Hansen –
Thanks for the clarification. I do not know what my bounce rate was until now since I only had sitemeter on. I have just installed Google analytics and see that the bounce rate is hovering around the 75% mark and changed my ‘Related Post’ text to ‘Most Clicked Articles’. Hopefully that will prompt users to click and check them out.
I cannot measure its effectiveness since I just installed analytics. But if this somehow helps solve the MayDay mess, I would be so happy..
Hey Mark
are you trying to fix the bounce rate for the site in whole or each page individually. Most of my sites hover around 40-45% bounce rate for the site in whole… with only 2 of my sites with bounce rate in the low 50% range.
Thanks
@Junior –
Nevermind that Mark… as I RE-READ your post… I understand now.
Sorry for the bonehead question.
@Junior – LOL. Not a bonehead Q Junior. I am looking at the PAGE level.
Some [pages] have lost 90% of their traffic… so I am trying to find out why. By 90%, I am also referring to several hundreds of weekly visitors… to that single page.
Small differences can have a very large impact!
M
Hey Mark,
I’ve actually put together a lengthy post on all the tools I could find in order to help webmasters get a hold on their bounce rate. I would appreciate it if you took a look and gave your comments on them as I know a few people have been having a lot of success with certain ones. I guess it all depends on what kind of crowd your attracting to your site. Anyways, have a look and let me know what you think
@Top Level Domains – Hey TLD, Great list of tools for sure! From finding the rate to communicating wiht the casual surfer!
Nice list!
One of my main sites that brings the majority of my ePN clicks was busted from number 1 in G to page 20 or something. My long tail died overnight.
I managed to get it back to number 1 by changing the wordpress blog to have a single page on the home page rather than a list of posts. From there I created an N1way style landing page with links off to my main articles with images and stuff.
It seemed to have worked and my traffic has doubled!
It is not back to where it used to be, and only for my main keyword rather than the full long tail stuff I used to get, but it is a step in the right direction!
@Tao – Great Tip Tao! Static home pages kick butt!
Mark
Leave your response!
Listen While You Read!
Site Categories
Monthly Archive
My Favorite Places
Blogging Sites
Blogroll
Places I Write
Technology Sites
Site Credits
Niche Store Builder is powered by WordPress, using a modified theme originally inspired by Arthemia.
Home | About | Terms & Privacy