7 Reasons Visitors are Bouncing from Your Blog (and how to fix it)

Does looking at your blog’s bounce rate put you into a slight panic?

Are you consistently putting out the best content you can and still seeing a high bounce rate?

Relax. Your bounce rate may not mean as much as you think it does and even so, there are things you can do to improve the time that people spend on your blog.

What is Bounce Rate?

According to Google, “Bounce Rate is the percentage of single-page sessions (i.e. sessions in which the person left your site from the entrance page without interacting with the page).”

So if a lot of people are coming to your site and “bouncing” away without clicking on anything on the page and just hitting the back button or closing the tab, then it results in a higher bounce rate.

What is My Bounce Rate Supposed to Be?

If you’ve ever read anything about bounce rates, you’re probably thinking your blog should be at around 45%. Is yours more like 70%, give or take?

Before you freak out, RocketFuel, a design and marketing company, has this to say about average bounce rates:

“As a rule of thumb, a bounce rate in the range of 26 to 40 percent is excellent. 41 to 55 percent is roughly average. 56 to 70 percent is higher than average, but may not be cause for alarm depending on the website. Anything over 70 percent is disappointing for everything outside of blogs, news, events, etc.”

Did you see that last sentence?

Anything over 70 percent is disappointing for everything outside of blogs…

Yup. Blogs are expected to have higher bounce rates!

I couldn’t find any hard facts on the reasons why, but here’s my best guess:

First-time visitors usually arrive to a blog post from a link on social media. They are probably drawn in by the title, click through to find the information they need, then go about their day.

But, there are things you can do to encourage people to stay on your blog longer. Let’s look at some of the reasons why people leave your blog and how we can get them to stay and improve your bounce rate.

Why Visitors are Bouncing from Your Blog and How to Keep Them on Your Blog Longer

Inside my Facebook Community, Blog Beautiful, I host a weekly Feedback day where I, and others from the group, answer people’s questions, help their struggles and give feedback on design and layout. Many of our members wonder what they are doing wrong with their blogs because they can’t get people to stay.

Most of the time I end up giving the same pieces of advice over and over, so I went ahead and compiled those answers into this post so you, my friend, can get a head start on avoiding these commonly made mistakes.

1. You don’t have a tagline

If your blog’s title doesn’t make it completely obvious what your blog is about, people coming to it for the first time may have no idea what it’s about and why they should stick around.

A good tagline is located in the header near your blog name or logo and ideally addresses a problem or goal that the reader has.

If your blog is missing a tagline or yours isn’t serving you well, I have a post and free downloadable worksheet to help you write one that will draw people in, rather than away, from your blog. Check it out:

How to Write a Kickbutt Blog Tagline

2. You don’t have a sidebar photo and/or well-written mini bio

Contrary to what many people think, not all new visitors to your blog come in through the home page. Visitors entering your site for the first time via social media usually enter through a blog post.

For the same reasons outlined in #1, you want to make it as clear as possible to people what your blog is there for and how you can help them.

This means that a short “About” bio should address them, not you. And adding a nice photo of you helps them to not only relate to you, but trust your advice.

I’ve got a great post on this for you too to check out:

How to Create a Killer Blog Sidebar Profile Bio + Photo

3. Your blog’s layout is too cluttered

If there’s a ton of stuff going on on your blog when newcomers stop by, they may not know where to go next. Less is often more. One place we can easily get carried away is in our sidebars. (I know, I’m guilty too sometimes)!

That’s why it’s important to re-evaluate your sidebar about once a year to make sure everything there is serving you and your visitors’ needs well.

Check out my How to Really Organize and Prioritize Your Blog’s Sidebar series, complete with free worksheet!

4. Your blog’s navigation is messy and unclear

Do you have a main menu with a gazillion links across the top? Is your sidebar missing your main blog categories? If not, listen up.

People like clearly organized information. They are looking for you to do this for them.

Top Menu Organization

Let’s make sure your top-level links are streamlined. How can you group categories together so that you show only a few in your top menu? Can you use a drop-down menu in your theme or template to show subcategories?

It’s much easier for someone to look at just a handful of choices at the top, pick one, then filter down from there, than it is for them to select from 10+ choices right off the bat.

Think of ways you can clearly organize your topics. And by the way, it’s perfectly okay to have some subcategories appear below two different top level topics.

Read: How To Prioritize Your Blog’s Menu Like A Pro

Sidebar Categories

If your blog has a sidebar, this is the perfect place to add a list of your categories. WordPress and Blogger let you do this easily with a Categories widget/gadget. Most other blogging platforms have similar widgets.

If you want to style your categories into pretty buttons, you can do that easily with CSS. Check out my Beginner’s CSS for Bloggers Guide.

5. You aren’t serving up related posts

What’s the best way to keep someone’s attention when they come to your blog post on a specific topic? Show them more posts that are related to the topic they’re currently reading!

There a few ways you can do this:

• Add a related post widget or gadget to the bottom of your posts.
  These should automatically select other posts based on tags or keywords in your posts. LinkWithin is a good, free one you can use on various blogging platforms.
• Embed related links in your posts.
  Notice how I’ve been linking to past content throughout this post? You should be doing this as well. And it goes both ways: Go back to your older posts and link to newer posts as you publish them.
• It doesn’t hurt to show your most popular posts in your sidebar.
  While these may not be directly related to the article on hand, since they are popular with your readers, they may interest your new visitor as well.

6. Your posts are difficult to read

If I click to an article and am presented with a huge wall of text that looks incredibly daunting and boring to read, I will usually click away quickly, in favor of a post that’s more pleasant to read.

What makes for a good-looking, easy-to-read post?

Take a note from magazine articles…

• Short paragraphs.

  This may go against what you learned in High School English class, but on the web, it’s much easier to read small bits of text. Short, punchy paragraphs work best in this case. I try to keep mine to three sentences, tops.

• Subtitles

  These help to break up the information and make it easy to organize what the reader is learning. Subtitles also help people quickly make sense of the content in your post.

• Easy to read fonts
  Never, ever use script, italic or bold fonts as the main font for your paragraphs. Have you ever read a magazine article like that? Me neither.

  Find a nice, simple, easy-to-read font in either serif or sans serif.

• Decent font size and line height
  If your font sizes are too small, it may be difficult for people to read. I’m not that old yet, but I spend a lot of time on a computer each day and it tires my eyes. It’s so much easier on my tired eyes to read a nice big, open font with ample spacing between each line.

  Aim for about 16px in font size and a line-height of 1.5 (One and a half times the size of the font).

• Reasonable line lengths
  Is your blog too wide on certain size screens? If so, your paragraphs could be really wide, making it harder to read. Don’t feel like you have to use up the entire width of a screen for your blog. I’d much rather keep scrolling down through a long post than scan my eyes back and forth a wide distance from left to right.

  Aim for about 100 characters per line.

• Good contrast
  Is your font color dark enough to read easily? When I first redesigned, I was using a lighter gray font that got a lot of complaints! I’ve since darkened the color and no longer get complaints about it.

  It’s best to use a dark gray (not black as it’s too much contrast) for paragraphs and headings. Use color for links and emphasis only.

7. Your blog uses too many different styles or fonts

This may not directly cause new visitors to bounce from your blog, but having a clean and consistent look will definitely help keep people around because if your blog looks “put together,” then you look “put together!”

Consistent styling throughout all your branding elements also helps people recognize your content on social media. How many times have you saved a Pin just because you recognized it as belonging to one of your favorite bloggers?

Colors and Fonts

Work on using a dependable color scheme and font palette throughout your blog, blog images and social media profiles.

Aim for 2-3 colors and 2-3 different fonts. Use these helpful posts to create the perfect color and font palettes:

Ultimate Guide to Choosing Colors for your Blog or Website
Beginner’s Guide to Fonts for Your Blog: How to Choose Font Combinations

Images

Likewise, you also want a uniform look for your blog’s imagery. Try to use images with colors that match your branding. Do you want to use mostly white photographs with bits of color (think styled stock photography)? Maybe you prefer very colorful photographs? Or perhaps your niche calls for using black and white imagery.

Whichever you feel works best for your brand and needs, stick with it so people become familiar with the look and feel of your images. This is especially important to keep in mind when creating your posts’ Pinnable title images, where consistent style, color scheme and font palette are equally important. Here’s a post to help you create a template for your Pinnable images:

How to Create Stunning Blog Post Title Images with Resources

Want More Ways to Keep People from Bouncing from Your Blog?

All of the tips above, plus 43 more are included in my super easy-to-follow eBook, Blog Beautiful: 50 Tips + Fixes to Make Your Blog Glow.

You can download a free sample of the book by subscribing to my Free VIP Library! Just click the graphic below and sign up…

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Now, I want to hear from you! Which of the suggestions above is your blog lacking in? What are you going to work on today?