How to Reduce Bounce Rate for your Blog

In this post, I’m going to show you how to reduce bounce rate for your blog with industry-tested techniques.

We’ve curated these techniques from marketing pros, just like you. Meaning they’re proven to work in practice.

So let’s dive in.

What’s your Blog Bounce Rate?

Before you can reduce bounce rate, you have to know where you stand.

So use Pagezii’s Blog Pulse Report. It shows bounce rate for your recent posts. Have a look:

There’s no need to look at posts which are years old. Because odds are you’ve changed your tactics since publishing them.

So with your bounce rate in mind, let’s look at ways to improve.

Identify Reader Goals

Think about why your reader is visiting. This makes a difference when considering bounce rates.

Because if visitors are landing on our blogs and not getting what they came for, a bounce is inevitable.

Bryce Liggins, Senior Strategist at Brolik elaborates:

Reducing blog bounce rates requires a content marketer to identify why the blog reader is coming in the first place. Identify their goal and enhance the page’s ability to meet that goal.

If the visitor is looking to learn more about a topic, the page needs to provide actionable insights that the reader can implement while linking to deeper instruction. If the reader is looking for an answer to a question, the blog should identify the next three questions that are likely to rise and provide resources for those answers.

With that said, it’s important to understand that most blog readers aren’t going to buy your product or service on their first visit. Blog readers are higher in the funnel, and as such, require stage appropriate KPIs. Then link these KPIs to community metrics such as email subscribers, social following, and retargeting lists.

So:

How can you identify reader goals before you even start writing?

It’s not that hard. You just have to think about your topic.

Take this blog for example.

It focuses on “How To Reduce Bounce Rate for your Blog”.

Someone reading this post is likely looking for actionable techniques.

But let’s change up the scenario. What if I was writing a blog on “Blog Bounce Rate Industry Benchmarks”.

Our current content format might not work. Because we’re asking industry experts to shares their strategies for success. It’s subjective. So visitors may see this and bounce to another blog that’s objective.

Just remember:

Reducing bounce rate for your blog starts before even you put finger to keyboard.

Now let’s move on to writing techniques that reduce bounce rate.

Make Blog Writing Easy to Consume

The essence of blogging is the written word.

But There’s one thing you MUST keep in mind:

You’re writing for online readers. And online readers need engagement fast. You only have about eight seconds to grab their attention and keep it.

So here are blog writing techniques to help reduce bounce rate.

Snappy Blog Intro

Blog readers have goldfish-like attention spans.

So:

No need to get fancy with intros. Just communicate key information. Andrew Elliot, CEO of GoDesignerGo shares how to do it:

Let readers know what they are going to get out of the article in the first paragraph (preferably the first few sentences!). People are only going to spend a few seconds looking over the opening of your article before deciding if the article is worth their time. Telling them what they’ll gain gives them a reason to continue reading.

Bonus points here if your article offers some kind of awesome free content. But advice, tips, or tricks also work really well at hooking people in. The more compelling the reason, the more likely they are to stay to the very end! Make the article about your reader and less about yourself or your company.

Andrew’s points on opening paragraphs are spot on.

This goes back to our first technique on identifying visitors goals: Your visitors are reading your blog for reason. So deliver the goods fast.

Now let’s focus on the actual “meat” of your blog.

Scannable Content Writing

Don’t stop being punchy with your writing after the intro.

Maggie Aland, Writer at Fit Small Business backs the importance of scannable writing with her contribution:

One technique that has worked for me is to break up my articles into short paragraphs with multiple headers. People reading articles online are typically skimming to find the information they need. By using headers, readers can immediately tell if they’ll find the information they’re looking for.

Plus, people have short attention spans. If they see a long block of text it’s likely they’ll leave the page. Each heading serves as a hook for the reader. The goal is to keep readers engaged (with a short paragraph) until your next main point.

Keeping your writing scannable helps readers see your content through.

But as your visitors read, it’ll get harder and harder to keep them engaged…

Closing your Blogs

Natalie Hornyak, Copywriter at Garfield Group shares tips for keeping reader attention towards blog end.

Users tend to read content in the shape of a capital F — reading all the way across lines closer to the top of a page, then only the leftmost portion toward the bottom. This gives you insight when deciding where and when to use images or calls-to-action. Use good buffer space, and use them with greater frequency toward the bottom of the post.

So far we’ve bounce rate reduction tips to use before and during the writing process. But let’s shift gears to quick fixes you can implement to keep visitors around.

Quick Fixes to Reduce Bounce Rate for your Blog

Here are few quick fixes you can implement on your blog right now. Give them a try and keep visitors around.

Create Bridges to Related Content

Your blog is a web of knowledge. And if you focus on a specific niche, you’ll have other blogs and content you can link to.

Brandon Schmidt, Content Strategist at YDOP shares his unique tips for internal linking:

At YDOP, one of our most successful tips for reducing blog bounce rate is to add relevant internal links in the body copy. Of course, this means you have to write blog posts on related topics.

For this, we rely on an editorial calendar and long-term planning to ensure we are covering important topics with our new posts. We also add links to posts from several years ago, so that new readers dive into our archives.

Spark a Conversation

Another awesome way to engage your visitors is through your comments section.

By encouraging your readers to share their opinions, you’re asking them to engage with your blog and your community. Here’s how Larissa Murilla, Marketing Manager at MarketGoo has success with this technique:

I think an often overlooked technique is to always encourage readers to leave a comment or answer a question below your post.

When you answer them (and you should!), you can also drop a link to more content on your site that will reduce bounce rate. Additionally, you can be the first to comment on your own post, with a P.S. linking readers to another related article, or to a new webinar or eBook.

Mix Up The Media

Your visitors love reading blogs.

But they also love video. So why not embed one when possible.

And why stop there? You can use images, infographics, and other forms of media to engage your visitors.

Lauren Beauvais, CMO at Techvera shares her results using this strategy:

How to reduce bounce rate for blogs use multile media forms Lauren

My best not so run-of-the-mill tip for reducing blog bounce rates would be to mix up the media used in each blog post.

People like to consume content in different ways. Avoid just having a wall of text and try to include pictures, infographics, videos, gifs, etc. We’ve noticed a significant decrease in bounce rates of 20-30% on blog posts using a range of media.

We’ve covered writing and content creation and quick fixes to reduce bounce rate. So let’s finish off this post with a few pitfalls to avoid.

Pitfalls to Avoid

If you want to keep bounce rate low, make sure to avoid these pitfalls. Because they’ll have visitors clicking the back button for good.

Stay Clear of Clickbait Headlines

Clickbait is when you use a headline promising something, and then completely fail to deliver. Eleana Collins, Director at Warschawski explains:

Your headlines should entice someone to read your blog while also being accurate. In some cases, people will end up on a blog because the title drew them in, but the actual content doesn’t have much to do with the title.

As a result, people will almost immediately leave your site.

Slow Page Load Time

Low attention spans have been a common theme throughout this post.

So one major pitfall to avoid is slow page load times. If your pages loads slowly, your readers are going to bounce before they even see your content.

Ruggero Loda from Running Shoes Guru explains:

There is a direct correlation between page load times and bounce rate. Every time we managed to reduce the page load time, our bounce rate dropped immediately. Designers usually test sites on desktop screens with a powerful internet connection. But the disconnect is that more and more web visits right now come from mobile phones.