Blog design plays a very important part in keeping your visitors stay on your blog for a long time that is why I recommend you keep your template as neat as possible. In my today’s article, I am going to tell you how you can decrease your blog’s bounce rate so as to keep your readers busy with your blog. Let me define bounce rate first :
In websites, bounce rate is defined as the percentage of visitors that bounces to some other site rather than continue on to other pages of the same site
OK, now coming to the topic, to increase page views it is a must that you have a lower bounce rate. Below are some tips you must follow in order to reduce the bounce rate. Let's start :
Content
The most important factor that counts is what content is there in your blog. If the user finds your content useful he/she will definitely navigate to other pages of your site and if the first impression is bad, then you’ve to work hard to write good content. Content really matters. Refer to this post of mine, where I’ve given some tips on writing a superb blog post.
Template Design
As told in my previous articles also, keep your template as neat as possible, your template should :
- not have too much of ads
- not have useless sidebar badges
- be fast loading
Say no to Pop-up Advertisements
I’ve seen some bloggers use a pop-up box that asks for subscribing to their blog. I do not recommend it at all. If you’ve good content your readers will automatically subscribe to your blog. If you want you can place a subscription box at the end of every post.
Magazine-style home page
90% of the readers that comes to your blog always visit the home page, so your home page must have enough content to keep the readers busy. I recommend using a magazine-style home page. It displays maximum content in minimum space. This is the reason I’m also using the magazine-style home page.
Create an Archive page
It is a must to have an archive page in your blog, it includes the list of all the posts category-wise as well as monthly-wise. If you have an archive page your readers can easily browse all your articles through one page. One of the best ways to show all your articles and also make Google happy. If you want to create an archive page, use this plugin called Clean Archives Reloaded.
Adsense ads
It is recommended not to keep Adsense ads in between the articles. Though it will generate good money there exists a chance that users can switch to another site. So, be careful!
Interlink your articles
As told before, Interlinking is a very good habit, while writing a post, interlink it with some other related article using a proper keyword, in this way, the user will navigate to that article rather than pressing Ctrl+W
Related Articles
It is the most common method to decrease the bounce rate. You can display related articles on the single.php page after any post ends. To show related posts you can use a plugin called YARPP.
Recent articles and recent comments
In my last, I told you how to make the most out of your sidebar, and there I told you the importance of displaying recent articles and comments in the sidebar. You can also add this widget in your sidebar to decrease the bounce rate.
Popular articles
Everyone likes to read what is popular, so it is a must to have a popular post widget in the sidebar to reduce the bounce rate.
Next post/Previous post
In the thesis theme, there is a default option to display the next and previous posts below the comment box. I really like this feature, if your theme does not have this option, no problem, I’ll tell you.
Open single.php file and paste the following code where you want to display the next/previous posts, I recommend it beneath the comment box.
Tag to display the previous post
<?php previous_post(); ?>
Tag to display next post
<?php next_post(); ?>
I am sure by following these tips, you will surely decrease your blog bounce rate. Try it once and share your views with me.
%20(YouTube%20Thumbnail)%20(12).png)
