Today I spent most of my time reading other blogs. Note to those of you that do not break your content up, and do not title paragraphs or chunks of material. I’m leaving your site right away. I’m sorry, I’m not going to spend the time to read your 500 word or longer post with just one title. It’s not how the web works. Continue reading »
Apr 272009
Here is a good general rule when making a blog post. Limit the number of pictures you include on it. Unless your post is titled something like “Top Ten Pictures of…” you should really avoid using too many images in just one post.
Top Blog Posts
I spent some of the weekend looking for good traits of a blog post using my sites stats, and the popular posts listed on some of the most popular blogs on the net today. Here is what I found. Avoid using more than one image in your post.
Adding a picture to your post does seem like a good idea. Most of the popular posts I found had at least one. Nine out of the ten most popular posts on this site had exactly one picture. Looking at the other bloggers, pictures did seem essential, but finding a popular post with more than three images was pushing your luck. Sure their are plenty out there with more than three, but I am looking at the top posts out there.
Reduce The Bounce
Images do draw a crowd, but they don’t neccessarily reduce the bounce. Because I am only able to use my own sites for statistics on the bounce rate I can not say this for everyone, but it seemed pretty clear that the number of images in a post directly correlates to the number of bounced visitors. Meaning, the more images in the post, the higher the bounce.
Using this and another blog I have for the statistics I looked for posts with over 100 views. Looking at the ones with the least bounce rate the best posts had no pictures at all, and a high percentage of the remaining had just one picture. Note to self, use just one pic.
Apr 092009
Back in March I started a poll asking if you expect the logo to link to the home page. Current results say 93% of you say yes. The reason I started it was because I had a client that was not linking their logo. I told them it’s a good idea, we did it, and now it’s a month later. Here are the results.
The Results
- Bounce Rate: Up 0.92%
- Pages Per Visit: Up 6.8%
- Time on Site: Up 36.33%
Though I was expecting a decrease in the bounce rate, the slight increase was not much to worry about. Appearance in the sites layout did not change at all. We simply made the logo link to the home page. The numbers I did like seeing were the number of pages per visit and the time on site, both went up. Page views went from 5.5 to nearly 6 per visitor, and that slight increase made a dramatic change in time on site. All because of a now linking logo.
Another Factor?
I don’t think so. This now linking logo was the first and only change done on this site in more than a year. It was also the first significant change in site stats that it had in a while. Trend lines were leading a longterm, non-eventful path back to zero. The previous month showed negative numbers for pages per visit and time on site.
Final Check
The last thing I checked for to see if the home page was getting seen more by the average visitor compared to previous months. Previous months showed 16% of all visitors went to the home more than once per session. Now, with the logo linking back home, that number has increased to 27%.
Note to self…link your logo home!
Nov 242008
So you may be asking what is a “Targeted Bounce”. I don’t think there is a known popular definition, but I certainly have one.
A targeted bounce is marketing to random visitors with the hopes they will enjoy your site.
If you market to anyone and everyone, you will have a targeted audience that will most surely bounce off of your site. Additionally, if you market your site without clearly defining it, your visitors are as good as random.
Having a Tag Line
You hear it a lot, having a tag line is important. Even the blogging software I am using to write this post, WordPress, has a spot for me to enter a tag line. It asks for the blog title, and the next thing it asks for is the tag line. You got to have one, and not just because it’s cool. You have to have one because it defines what you do. Best Web Image – Web Usability and Design, “Web usability and Design” is my tag line. By reading my tag line you should quickly understand that my site is about usability and design, and not the best web images.
Check out EduBook. It’s an article marketing site. Notice the screenshot I took of it. No tag line, and in fact, you might think it’s about horse training if you read the first post title. It’s not. Their specialty is really not even apparent at first glance. Here is what they do:
- Article Marketing
- Write Internet Marketing Articles
- Write Make Money Online Articles
The only way you can really tell that their site is about article marketing would be to visit those categories. The category is then obviously filled with articles and titles that you would expect. A few of them pretty good as well. So this is the killer for me. You spend a whole bunch of time writing quality articles, but your site fails you because you have not clearly defined it. Visitors show up, they think “What is this site?’, find no visual clues, and bounce.
Define Your Site
Take the time to define your site. Add a tag line, offer a brief introduction paragraph, give your visitors a clear reason to be their. You may bounce the ones not interested in your niche, but that is OK, they are not interested in your niche. Grab the ones that are interested, and don’t let go. Don’t target a bounce.
Nov 182008
I monitor all of my sites with Google Analytics, and here is another reason why. It’s the new beta Advanced Segment option. One of the things I like to analyze is my Top Content. By knowing what your top content is, you can see what is driving traffic to your site, and what is at least capturing your visitors interest. What if the page is simply keyword rich though? Are you just getting a bunch of search engine traffic that you are not really trying to capture? Basically, did you create a high quality page that all of your visitors like, or did you just get lucky with some keyword?
What Bounces Your Regulars?
So with the new beta Advanced Segments that Google has you can see not just what your top content is, but what your top content is for your regulars. By selecting Direct Traffic or Returning Traffic, you can get a good idea what your regular visitors are doing. You can find what they like, and what makes them bounce out. What’s even better about this, is that you can select several sources, and it will graph them individually so you can see any similarity or differences. Don’t be surprised when you find the spikes are not the same.
After selecting your source, look at that bounce column to find out what your stinkers are. Compare them to the low bounce rate pages, and find out what the difference is. It could be anything, picture vs. no picture, less links vs. more links, layout, whatever. Depending on your site it could simply be the quality or subject matter of that page. There is most likely something though, so really look hard if it is not obvious.
Finding the Real Winners
Using the same method as above, but selecting Direct, Return, and Search, find out what pages are the real winners. After applying the filter to your Top Content scroll down to see the break down of bounces for each category. Make sure you check out the Exit percentage as well. You will probably find that your returning visitors have the lowest bounce rate, and that is to be expected. What you are looking for here though, is for the low bounce rate for all categories. These are your real winners because they are what the random search traffic visitor wants, and it’s what your regulars want. As before, compare these winners to the losers so you know what to do next time. There are a lot of different ways you can mix this, but it’s all thanks to the new beta Advanced Segments.
Aug 202008
One of the things I have been working on the past couple of days is the length of my visitors session. Overall, I am very happy with the results, and about 19% of my visitors stay at least three minutes with several page views. Over the past month I have made a few changes to the site, and comparing to the previous numbers everything has been improving. Visitors new and old are staying longer. I have one problem area though, and that is the 30-60 second visitors. This number has been increasing, and I believe it’s because my instant bouncer is staying just a little longer. So now I am looking for ways to get them to break that one minute barrier. Once they do that, my odds of having another regular just went up.
By Moms
I found a site that gave me an idea that might just help me out. By Moms is a web portal for Moms and Women in general. One thing that caught my eye, and will most likely catch yours, is the main animation under their logo. What’s it for? To sell their categories, to sell their site, and to quickly sell you on reading their content.
Sell Your Content
When I say “Sell Your Content”, I don’t mean for money to an outside source. I mean sell it to your visitors. Sell the idea that this site is for them, and that they should read your content. What’s one of the best methods to selling a product online? Show a picture of it. All their categories are in the header, you don’t really need their animated menu to use the site, but that new visitor certainly needs it.
Animated menus like this get that new ten second visitor clicking a few times more than normal just to check out the images. Now that ten seconds is thirty, and what happens if they SEE something they like? Whamo, you got them. I’d love to know if this site always had the animated menu. I would also love to know if they had a big decrease in bounces when/if they added it.
It’s always a good idea to have something to draw a visitor into a second page. An example is my “Action Start Here” banner that I currently have on my home page. Using the My Moms site as an example though, you can see muliple things that can get that second page view, and use pictures to do the work. Not the right target visitor? No problem, check out this other picture.
event entertainment (2)
proflight simulat... (1)