A blog’s bounce rate is a percentage measuring the amount of visitors who leave the way they came, i.e. a search visitor who arrives at one page and leaves without navigating anywhere else in your site.

Each visitor who ‘bounces’ out of your site is a lost opportunity to gain a loyal reader or new subscriber.

Fortunately, there are a number of things you can do to cut down your bounce rate. This will help you convert more new visitors into loyal readers (something we all want). In addition, a low bounce-rate will add value to your blog if you ever decide to sell it.

Here are 8 methods you can use to lower your bounce-rate:

1. Prune your main page down to essentials.

A new visitor has a limited amount of attention to give your site. You want to show-off its value as quickly as possible. Widgets and unimportant elements divert attention away from what’s really important about your blog. Uncluttering and making the layout simpler will help new visitors give their attention to the things that most strongly sell your blog to them.

2. Highlight your best posts above the fold.

With so much outstanding content to choose from on the web new visitors are becoming increasingly bored with everyday content. They want the best of everything. You can satisfy this want by showcasing a list of your best or most popular posts somewhere they can be easily spotted (preferably towards the top of your sidebar).

3. Show off your categories list.

In addition to being a useful navigational element, your categories list provides a quick overview of what you write about. If a new visitor sees a category they’re interested in you can bet they’ll be more likely to stick around. Around 10 categories is an ideal length: it’s long enough to be specific and short enough that your visitors will be willing to spend the time needed to look it over.

4. Use post excerpts if your posts are long

One of the ways new visitors will evaluate your blog is to scroll down the main page and get an overview of the kind of posts you produce. If your posts are too long and there’s too much content on the main page they’ll probably get tired of scrolling and decide to stop.

You can alleviate this problem by displaying post excerpts on the main page with a ‘Continue reading’ link underneath. This will lower your bounce rate because it allows new visitors to quickly get an overview of your blog while also encouraging them to click through to the full post.

5. Share related posts on single post pages

Social media and search traffic will mostly end up at single post pages on your blog. They also represent the kind of traffic most likely to bounce out of your site. You can improve the situation by providing a list of related posts at the end of each single post page. You can do this manually (at the end of each post) or Wordpress users can utilize the Contextual Related Posts plug-in.

6. Provide an easy to spot link to the main page.

Social media and search visitors who’ve landed on a single post page and decide to explore further will probably want to visit your main page first. If you make the link to your main page hard to find they could lose patience and navigate away. I suggest making your header image link to your main page. It’s also important to provide another link in your navigation area.

7. Make your About page easy to find.

Your About page will often be a first port of call for new visitors wanting to get an idea of what your site is about. Visitors will always bounce out of your site if they think it isn’t relevant to them. You can use your About page to explain why it is relevant. For that reason, you should make the link to your About page very easy to find.

8. Write a tag-line or blurb for your main page.

A short tag-line or blurb can help a visitor quickly establish what your blog is about and what it has to offer them. Including a descriptive tag-line or blurb on your main page will encourage more new visitors to investigate rather than wandering away.

Thank you Skellie for Writing this amazing post on Blog Perfume