One of the most glaring things that comes up in the analytics for my blog (not this one) is its incredibly high bounce rate, which usually hovers between 65 – 75%. By professional web standards, this is not something to brag about. For those not in the know, your bounce rate is the statistic that tells you how many people are leaving your site from the page they land on.

Typically, a good website provides its intended visitors what they need or want. A low bounce rate, something under 50% for example, indicates that your website is doing what it’s supposed to be doing: inspiring the majority of your visitors to stick around and see what other useful information they can find.

Easing my bounce rate anxiety, Alex’s informative piece An Ode to Bounce Rate on Net-Entrepreneur.com suggested that bounce rate standards are different for static web pages than they are for blogs. For a static site, the home page requires users to click on links to other areas. Therefore, a high bounce rate means that your visitors are ignoring the rest of your content, and could be due to several different reasons. For blogs though, the layout of information can be quite different.

Blogs are dynamic. New content is added to the front page, and when it does the old content is bumped deeper into the Netherlands of your blog. A high bounce rate doesn’t necessarily mean your content is going unread, it just means that they are browsing all your current content on the main page without clicking on the articles.

When your main page is showing the full stories, there is very little incentive for users to click through your site and thus you receive a high bounce rate. This information helped me to understand what was going on with my blog as 80% of my articles have the full text available from the main page.

After understanding this different standard, I was somewhat relived, but I still wanted to keep visitors on my blog a little while longer. So I looked again to Alex’s post for some pointers. Among his most actionable suggestions were:

Add “Read More” links on your posts. Writing posts with a ‘read more’ link means that only the first portion of your article appears on the front page, with the link leading visitors to the full article on its own page. Laying your articles out in this fashion saves your visitors from scrolling through entire posts when scanning your blog, gives them more stories to look through, and also offers them incentive to click on your pages, getting the full story.

Link to past articles within your posts. When appropriate, link to your past posts to elaborate on your points or show visitors where they can get more information. Having links right dead center in your posts is sure to encourage more page views on your blog.

Install a “Related Posts” plug-in for your blog. This will find and list content similar to your current post within your blog, providing several pages for your visitors to consider viewing before they leave. Providing these lists also demonstrates your authority on a particular subject matter and reveals the scope of your blog’s content.

Make your archives easily accessible. Have your monthly archives easily available either on your sidebar or on a separate page that can be accessed from your main navigation. With your archives in plain sight, new visitors can quickly see the depth of your blog and start exploring your past pages.

In closing, a high bounce rate doesn’t necessarily mean doomsday for your blog; it may just be the layout of your content that prevents visitors from exploring more of your pages. Clearly display links to past stories within the proper context, and visitors will be sure to start exploring your work. You may find that some minor tweaking in your blog’s presentation will keep your readers there longer, too!

What bounce rate strategies have you explored? What has worked for your blog?