How to Lower Your Bounce Rate in 5 Simple Steps

I’ve decided to make these blogging tips posts a more regular thing, I’m thinking weekly, as you guys seemed to love my 5 ridiculously easy SEO tips! This week I’m hoping to help you out with some of my tips on how to lower your bounce rate. If you’re wondering what a bounce rate is, have no fear, I’m here to help!

How to lower your bounce rate

What’s a Bounce Rate?

First things first, a bounce rate tells you about the behaviour of people who go on your website. If you go on to your Google Analytics, if you don’t have Google Analytics then stop what you’re doing and go and get it now (slash keep reading this post and then do it).

So a bounce rate tells you if people stay on your blog/website after they’ve seen the initial page they clicked on, or if they leave straight away. The lower the bounce rate, the better, because don’t we all want people to stay and read more and possibly become a loyal reader?

As someone with a bounce rate of just 3.75% I felt inclined to share some of my tips. I never really aimed to lower my bounce rate with these measures, just to tempt people to follow my blog and stay engaged.

How to lower your bounce rate

Lowering Your Bounce Rate

Link To Previous Content

This one I’ve said before, people are reading a post about lowering their bounce rate? Well then they might be interested in my 5 ridiculously easy SEO tips or my Blogging Tips post. You see what I did there? Linking relevant topic helps hugely, you’ve already got a reader and you know they’re interested in a certain topic so make the most of it! Show them other posts they might want to read and they’re going to hang around for longer!

Make Your Homepage Engaging

This is something I did to try and get people to follow me on Bloglovin’ but I feel like it’s had a big part to play in lowering my bounce rate too. I spent some time thinking about my homepage as if I were a reader and trying to make it clean and easy to navigate. You can get plugin’s for example that show the most popular posts or recently published posts down the side, it’s another great way of catching the readers eye and maintaining their interest!

Get Rid of Unnecessary Banners and Distractions

For me, I did this for my OCD but honestly, why would you have banners if you don’t have to and they aren’t beneficial to you? When I first discovered affiliates and banners I went a bit banner crazy, I had links left right and centre for every blogger group I was in and for every website I thought I could make 2p off a sale from.

When people are clicking on a banner or a ‘sticker’ they are leaving your site. I got rid of all of them except for my Next Blogger Network award sticker which of course takes pride of place! The rest of the ‘stickers’ I’ve just added to either my about me or contact.

Before and After

This is so simple but I think sometimes it’s the small touches that have the biggest effect. I’ve got a plugin for wordpress so that when you get to the bottom of the post, a little window will pop up with a snippet of the previous post. It’s more likely to catch someone’s eye if they can see the title and the picture than if they just see an arrow or the word ‘previous’.

Check Your Links

Finally, I thought this was just common sense and something everyone did but honestly I’m surprised at how many big bloggers don’t do this and it drives me nuts. Make sure your links open in a separate tab or window. If I have to keep clicking back to find the post, eventually I’m going to say stuff it. Unless it’s something really helpful and useful information you just aren’t going to bother!

How to lower your bounce rate

I hope you found this useful! Let me know if you did! And don’t forget to follow me on Bloglovin’ for more of my blogging tips and SEO posts which I’m hoping to do on a weekly basis now that they’re so popular! Every Thursday! You can follow me here!

I’ve also recently started on Youtube, you can see my first video here, it’s a Q&A with a little challenge thrown in at the end! I thought it would be great for you guys to get to know me and my personality as it’s not always easy to let it shine through on a blog post! I’m hoping to get lots of videos up regularly so let me know if there’s anything you want to see and don’t forget to Subscribe!

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23 Comments

  1. Sarah Dickinson
    11th February 2016 / 9:16 am

    Great Post Sinead!!!!! I have always wondered about Bounce Rates and mine being particularly high, always want to find ways to get it down!!!! I shall take these points into consideration and see how it goes!!!! Eeepp!!! Thanks for this lovely I’m really enjoying this series!
    P.S I’ve subbed on YT, I really enjoyed your first video! xo

    • Sinead
      Author
      11th February 2016 / 3:41 pm

      thanks so much hun! New video going up on sunday!

  2. Laura
    11th February 2016 / 11:25 am

    This is a great post! I always wonder how to get that pesky bounce rate down. On your site I’m definitely attracted to the little images directing the readers to a post (a bit more attractive than the usual plugin option) and also your Pinterest feed… but that may be because I love Pinterest right now!

    Laura | http://www.laurakathren.com

    • Sinead
      Author
      11th February 2016 / 3:40 pm

      I do them myself but I don’t rotate them as much as maybe I should do! I usually keep them as the ones that people will find the most helpful!

    • Sinead
      Author
      11th February 2016 / 3:40 pm

      Me too! I didn’t even know what google analytics was! So glad you found it helpful!!

  3. 11th February 2016 / 7:14 pm

    That notebook is adorable!
    I get roughly 6k views a week on my blog and my bounce rate is still pretty high but I guess its because people visit your blog for the one post but I’d love the be able to decrease it so I’m taking your tips on board and I’m going to get to work on your tips!

    I found your blog on bloglovin and I’m now following, looking forward to more content!

    http://www.throughthemirror.co.uk

    • 11th February 2016 / 9:41 pm

      Thanks hun! My sister got me it as a congratulations gift when I first started blogging! So cute!

  4. Aimée Julia Cottle
    11th February 2016 / 8:44 pm

    Where did you get this notebook? I need one! 🙂
    This is fab advice, I’ve literally just started looking into my bounce rate and these tips are just what I needed to help me improve it. Thank you! 🙂 x http://www.aimeeraindropwrites.co.uk x

  5. Kathy
    11th February 2016 / 8:53 pm

    Really good advice for new bloggers or someone who isn’t entirely sure about what they’re doing, like me!

    Kathy xx

    • 11th February 2016 / 9:42 pm

      I’m glad you liked it lovely! I’m doing a series of posts on SEO and general blogging tips!!

  6. Amanda Mactas
    12th February 2016 / 2:39 am

    Would love to know the name of that plugin to show your posts at the bottom! Thanks

    • 12th February 2016 / 9:14 pm

      I think I just searched before and after hun! I’m going to do a post on the best plugin’s in the future as well!

    • 12th February 2016 / 9:13 pm

      Glad you liked it! I hope you stick around to see the next in my series!!!

  7. Hannah Williams
    13th February 2016 / 4:24 pm

    This was really good to read, thanks for the tips Sinead! One question, where can you find your bounce rate? xx

  8. Theoni
    4th March 2016 / 3:43 pm

    that was really helpfull!

    • 7th March 2016 / 6:19 pm

      Thanks hun! Glad you liked it and found it useful!

  9. Sophie Mills
    6th March 2016 / 4:16 pm

    This is such a fabulous post and really helpful. When I finally take the plunge to become self-hosted, I am definitely going to be using the relevant plugins!

    • 7th March 2016 / 6:17 pm

      Glad you found it helpful hun! I think you can add plugins to non self hosted wordpress blogs too though!!

  10. Olivia Cheryl Williams
    11th March 2016 / 4:53 pm

    These are SO useful thanks!! I will try get that pop up! Xx

    • 17th March 2016 / 1:25 pm

      It’s a great pop up! I’ve mentioned it again in more detail and the exact name of the plugin on my wordpress plugins post!

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