Oh that evil bounce rate, always fighting to improve it! Yesterday, I changed the template of my other blog for a much more professional template and I must say I’m impressed. I managed to improve my bounce rate by 10% and I like it. That improvement is certainly not due to returning visitors exploring the new website, because I get a lot more organic traffic coming from search engines than returning visitors. For that reason, I don’t think they have a huge impact, they get diluted in the organic traffic a lot. This is just a great example of how a template can change a lot of things for a blog.
What’s so special with the template?
Nothing, really. It’s just damn more professional and better looking! I got rid of all the non essential stuff and this new template gives a lot more place to what really matters: the content. It’s funny how I haven’t even tweaked the template to improve the bounce rate. Just by being clean, it does the job. I certainly included the related posts plugin which helps a lot I presume but there is still a lot that can be made to make it a lot more a ‘bounce rate killer’.
Should you change too?
Maybe. You know, a blog goes through a lot of different phases before becoming well established and an awesome template won’t help you be that blog if you don’t focus on the content. You see, the new theme I used is the third one for the blog I’m talking about and I can say the first theme was looking extremely average. One day, I noticed I was able to get a little 100-200 uniques a day with that crappy template so I decided to improve it. I just changed the colors, a little bit of the look and feel and also designed a custom logo. I was actually extremely satisfied at the time and that partially helped me reach the 200-500 uniques a day mark just because it was a little unique and more professional. So now, this is my third theme move and hoping to get to a constant 1000+ uniques a day. I reach it on lucky days, but I’d like to reach it on a consistent basis. So should you change? Well, it depends where you are in your blog life. If you have some spare time or money and feel like your blog is due for a change, then go for it, but if you still like your template the way it is and don’t feel that changing it will help you, then don’t do it.
In fact, I’d much ratter tweak a template to its limit before changing it. When you feel you have reached the absolute limit and there’s no way you can monetize any further, improve your bounce rate or get more traffic, then you are due for a change!
It’s just a matter of credibility
In the end, having a unique and professional blog design is only a matter of getting some credibility. People will tend to respect you more if your website looks elegant and that will surely help you to establish yourself as an authority in your niche. You know, life is all about credibility…
20 Comments
I have always found the bounce rate interesting - mine always hovers around the 505% mark for my sites which I think is too high?
What is considered a normal healthy bounce rate?
I have always found the bounce rate interesting - mine always hovers around the 50% mark for my sites which I think is too high?
What is considered a normal healthy bounce rate?
It depends a lot on the type of website and traffic you have. For example, if most traffic comes from Stumble Upon, it’s normal to have something like a 70% bounce rate. Considering you have a shop, I think 50% is pretty good. This means that 1 out of 2 persons is interested in your products. I think it’s good olly!
My bounce rate is a high 70%…given, I think, because most of my traffic comes from specific Google searches.
My correct website…even I left out blogpot. Makes a point doesn’t it?
Scott Lackeys last blog post..Heineken Street Marketing and Product Sampling in New York City: Free Beer.
I keep tweaking theme to my liking. My image of what I want to end up with can be probably split in three points:
1. Minimalistic look that doesn’t distract from content
2. Clear segments so reader has no trouble understading where is what
3. Minimizing wasted space (that’s why I chose grid-like theme in first place)
These goals may change but so far they pay off and I get lots of positive feedback on my layout.
Downside that I had some strange bug with CSS-Compress plugin that had been breaking my sidebar randomly.
If you tweak a lot sometimes you break things no matter how hard you test. I am thinking about setting up testing routine to complete after changes or weekly.
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@Scott: 70% for Google traffic is ok if it’s a blog. It could get a little better, something like 55-60% though…It’s a reachable objective.
@Rarst: Your blog template looks really good. To be honest it’s clean, simple and we can navigate easily. I don’t know if it’s a free template, but if it is, it’s certainly one of the best out there because free templates are usually crap.
It’s free, but as I said with lots of my tweaks. I mostly cut excessive features, icons and rest of stuff that is not important but wastes space and HTTP requests. Still need to re-work some areas like comments.
About free themes in general I think it’s best to stick with those that are released by major sites as promotion and such. They are usually pro-made. Downside is that they may get overused.
Still it’s better to use well-known good theme than unknown crappy one.
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Wow Ben it happened again, three days ago I went and tweaked of my websites to improve the bounce rate and BAM it’s up by 10%, maybe we knew each other in another life? Congrat’s on the bounce!
I completely agree, constant testing and changes are the only way to improve bounce rate and the design and landing pages play a huge role
Thanks,
JR
JRs last blog post..Search Engine Optimization - Are you Dominating the SERPS?
Great post! Thanks for sharing this! I may have to change my template to test your theory.
reginas last blog post..Blog Rush On Blast!!
@JR: Man, this is really freaking me out, we often are blogging or experiencing the same thing!
Congrats on improving your bounce too!
@Regina: Thanks for your comment! Yes you could try to play around with your theme and see if there’s any result!
I have no idea what bounce rate is all about but I just changed my template too…
shaxxs last blog post..New Theme
Haha here’s a little definition for you from Wikipedia:
Bounce rate (sometimes confused with exit rate)[1] is a term used in web site traffic analysis. It essentially represents the average percentage of initial visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site.
I love your new template, reminds me of a certain wordpress admin panel
Good job, I’m sure this will help you!
Ben - thanks a lot - that is reassuring to know! Still going to try and get it down a bit more though!
Thanks an awesome exit rate which every website aspires to have…you have a killer template on hand , could be the next money maker ebook
This is something I really need to work on. I have experienced a lot of problems with a high bounce rate.
This is something I really need to work on.
I actually have no experience with my bounce rate either. I didn’t realize how important it could be. I guess I need to devote a bit more attention to this…
Hey Ben, can you recommend a site or two that sells top notch templates? I’m currently using a free one from blogger and while it’s okay, it’s really not what I want. I’m super new to blogging and have learned enough to be dangerous. Thanks!
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Bounce rate is a rough deal. There’s a pretty cool article over on CPA Share that talks about bounce rates and how you can optimize your pages with them. If you have high bounce rates associated with specific keywords (for PPC campaigns), stop using them for your campaign… they’re not relevant and the user who clicked obviously feels they’re not going to the place they want to be.
Anyway, food for thought.
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