What is Bounce Rate? Seven easy steps to decrease the Bounce Rate of your Wordpress blog or website.

In order to run a successful website you should know your site metrics. One key metric you should be aware of is Bounce Rate.

What is Bounce Rate?

Bounce rate is the percentage of single page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. This entrance can be from any page on your site. Use this metric to measure visit quality - a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages are not relevant to your visitors.

If you haven’t been tracking your users, you should start now. Google Analytics is free and awesome. Google Analytics - You can sign up here

To view the bounce rates for your website using Google Analytics. Sign in and go to the Bounce Rate report under Visitors > Visitor Trending > Bounce Rate.

Why monitoring Bounce Rate Metrics is important?

Lets assume you own a physical electronics store.To run your store successfully you will require a lot of foot traffic and once your customers arrive you want them to make transactions. Or at least surf the store, you never know as they can find something interesting and useful while surfing that they would like to buy.

Same rule applies to the online world and this process of getting more traffic and converting them to sales is called conversion. You invite customers to your website by investing both time and money on good content, email and affiliate marketing, paid search etc. And once your online users hit your website you would like to capitalize on that investment. 

Now this is where Bounce Rate Metric comes in handy. By measuring the bounce rate you can measure the effectiveness of your promotional marketing efforts. As you follow this metric at the landing page or the traffic source levels you can establish a baseline to track your success overtime.

We all spend a lot of money on conversions and this metrics can tell us where we are we acquiring quality traffic from and how successful we are on converting that traffic to sales or at the least have users stay on the site.

Bounce Rate metrics can be affected by a number of different variables. On an average bounce rate for your site should fall between 40 - 70%.  You can not convince all the site traffic to stay but if your Bounce Rate is more then 70% you are doing something wrong.

Bounce rate is a  great qualifying metric. Its a metric that helps you ask the right questions. Check the top web pages of your website from where people are entering the site and check there bounce rate. Remember as these pages are from where most of your online users are entering your site, you can determine by studying these pages if these pages are doing a good job.

How to bring down or decrease the bounce rate of your WordPress blog or website?

There are a number of measures that we can take to grab attention and compel users to stay on the site and thus decrease the bounce rate. I call them triggers or call to actions. Following are some of the steps that I follow rigorously and have been successful in decreasing the Bounce Rate for coolwebdeveloper.com over a period of time -

• Interesting Headline - Keep the title of your post interesting and should ignite quest to read the full post.
• Interactive Posts - Make your posts interactive by encouraging users to click on other useful links within your site. For example if you are writing a post on HP laptop, you can refer to previous posts you have written about HP laptop in this new article thus providing more options to your users.
• Best or Related Posts - Make sure your users can reach the Best or Related Posts from every page of your site.
  Wordpress Plugin you can use - Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
• BLOG’s design and SEO - Reconsider your blog’s navigation and overall theme design that could generate usability issues.

Thesis WordPress Theme has the following functions automatically built in, so you do not need to use these plugins if you are using this theme. Just as an FYI - This theme is already getting some great reviews around the blogosphere (you can see some testimonials here). You can download Thesis Wordpress Theme here.

But if you are using other themes, the following plugins will give you a similar look/effect.

• All in One SEO Pack - This plugin makes it easy for you to optimize your article titles and other meta tags. 
• Google Analytics - This plugin makes it easy for you to insert your Google Analytics code and start tracking your blog visitors.
• WP-Note - This plugin lets you insert notes in your article to make them stand out. Kind of similar to the yellow colored notes I have twice in this article.
• Wordpress Gravatars - This plugin lets you display Gravatars of your readers in the comments section and can put your Gravatar on top of your article to show who the article was written by.

• Error page - Make sure to use a 404 landing page on your blog or website. Users will hit this page if any link on your site is broken or not found. Using this page you can suggest your users about possible areas of site that can visit and might be interested in.
• Navigation - Easy to spot link to the Home Page. Use breadcrumbs feature for easier navigation. Categories and Posts should be easily visible on the site.
  WordPress Plugin you can use - Breadcrumb Navigation
• Not using relevant tags - One of the reasons why a lot of blogger’s and website owners have a high bounce rate is NOT using relevant tags while writing posts. Tag relevancy is very important. Users coming through Google or other sources are expecting to get the result based on there search keywqords. If you tags are not relevant, your bounce rate will definitely be higher. 
• Incentive Offers - If you have something to give away like Free themes, free e-books, free reports etc then you will always be able attract visitors to click on that link.
• Interactive Elements - Use interactive elements that would require users to take small actions, such as polls.

By following these check points consistently you will be able to reduce the Bounce Rate of your site.

Do you have a high or a low bounce rate? How has the bounce rate affected your blog? What methods did you find most efficient to reduce the bounce rate? If you have suggestions or want to discuss more about Bounce Rate please leave your comments.

Blogging and Stress. How to cope with stress from blogging?

A growing work force of home office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with gizmos and tweeting there way to fame and fortune, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by around the clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of information, news, articles and comments.

Blogging is an interactive medium to express your thoughts and views on a certain subject and it is growing at a phenomenal rate. Research from Universal McCann suggests that 45 percent of those surveyed have started a blog recently. There are about a million new blogger’s starting each year.

Why the rat race? Why so many bloggers?

For most people Blogging starts as a quick way of making money on the side. And with a number of blogs being advertised as making good money (and trust me out of those advertised not a lot of them make decent money) more people are getting trapped into this online business.

You can BLOG only if you have a passion for blogging. First and foremost you should have solid understanding of what you want to blog about. Most BLOGS start with no set plan and thus die within a month or so.

Speed can be of the essence in the blogging world. And that is what triggers the rat race and hence STRESS. If a blogger is beaten by a millisecond, someone else’s post on the subject will bring in the audience, the links and the bigger share of the ad revenue.

Once you have a blog most new bloggers will sign up with major social media sites (like Facebook) or Microblogging platforms (like TWITTER) to promote there content. A majority of bloggers start promoting there content / blog too early without even having any quality content on there blogs. And time spent on these sites + no traffic generated - leads to frustration and that adds to more STRESS.

I have read a very interesting and funny post by Michael Pinto on how Tweeting is becoming chronic - Social Media “Experts” are the Cancer of Twitter (and Must Be Stopped). Michael has captured the rise of social media in his own unique way.

What can you do to stop stress or scale it down a bit and enjoy blogging?

• Time Management : First and foremost adopt a time management strategy so that you can keep up different fields of work at the desired level of productivity.
• Lifestyle changes: Lead a more active lifestyle and spend less time trying to get that extra post done for the day, week, month or year.
• Exercise Regularly: Go to Gym every day. Go to gym even if you don’t exercise everyday, trust me it will still help chalking out a routine.
• Regular Day Offs: Start having the occasional day off (This is easier said then done though, but trying is the key)
• Vacationing: Go out of town, enjoy day hikes out of the city. Try to go somewhere - where there is no television, no cell phone coverage - and no don’t bring your pretty laptop.
• Enjoy Blogging: Treat your blog as a hobby, not a business. That alone reduces a lot of the pressure.
• Let it go at times: Resist the urge to post constantly. Think this way - It’s okay to take a few days off here and there. It’s better to take a vacation during the short term in order to maintain blogging for the long term.
• Follow a schedule: If you get frequently lost when it comes to the time spent online, a nice alarm clock can help. Set it to go off after a certain amount of time and know when it goes off, you are done for the day.
• Try not to sit in front of a computer at least 1 hour before you go to bed. The screen flicker makes your eyes, and your mind, think it’s daytime, hence you will have trouble sleeping.
• Don’t waste your time: Time is precious, don’t waste your time online. New bloggers have this habit of checking stats every single hour. This will not help.
• Stress will never help: Stress is unnecessary. Stress diminishes productivity. It’s something you definitely don’t want when you attempt to write your best post. Because well, if your brain is always thinking a dozen or more steps ahead, you end up faili ng to achieve the optimal goal of your present task. And if such behavior becomes habitual, well, then that can be a surprisingly deep hole to climb out of with any success.

I myself work as a web consultant and also do write articles for my own blog and at times do write for some other bloggers. Since I have started blogging I have experienced stress and have already been there and have done most of the mistakes mentioned in this article.

I have followed the simple rules mentioned above for some time now and I am experiencing a better health and overall performance with reduced stress.

Remember blogging is about chilling out. Blogging doesn’t need to be a race. Really. Sometimes you need to learn these lessons the hard way. I certainly have.

How to host multiple blogs with a single WordPress install

Ever heard of WordPress MU …  yes, you got it right its WordPress Multi User. You can run multiple BLOGS with a single install using WordPress MU and can manage users and BLOGS individually.

And more importantly you don’t have to be a techie to start using WordPress MU. Its easy to set up and use, just like WordPress.

Plugins work just like they work with regular WordPress install. You can activate and de-activate Plugins per BLOG level.

You can configure different domains with different BLOGS you set up using WordPress MU.

You can set up different permissions for different BLOGS.

You can find a lot of WordPress MU resources at the official site here -

http://mu.wordpress.org/

WordPress MU is a wrapper around the core WP code that virtualizes multiple blogs. The code that differs is in some bootstrap files, and administration for multiple blogs and users.  Approximately 95-99% of MU is core WP.

WordPress MU is most famously used for WordPress.com where it serves tens of millions of hits on hundreds of thousands of blogs each day.

Here are Links to some good resources if you are using or even if you are planning to use WordPress MU -

• WordPress MU plugins, themes and news
• BuddyPress will transform an installation of WordPress MU into a social network platform.
• OpenID Provider for WordPress MU
• Wordpress MU Plugins - All about Wordpress Multi-user

Microsoft layoff 5000 of their worldwide workforce

Due to decreasing sales and looming recession, Microsoft announced today that they are cutting there worldwide workforce by approximately 6%  i.e. 5000 employees out of there 91000 full time employees worldwide.

Microsoft’s earnings fell to US$4.17 billion, or 47 cents a share, from US$4.71 billion, or 50 cents a share, a year ago, missing analyst expectations by a penny a share. The company also said it would cease giving per-share forecasts for the rest of 2009 because of the uncertainty caused by a slumping U.S. and global economy and its shares fell $1.47 to US$17.91.

As per my previous post (Microsoft layoffs coming soon!! while Google layoff staff silently.) I was speculating that Microsoft will cut 10% of there worldwide workforce. Anyways, Microsoft layoffs are not something new. The company is just being quite discreet about it in the past.

Do you think these layoffs will impact Microsoft’s global presence? and there reputation as an employer. Please leave your comments.

NULL object errors using jQuery JavaScript library

While using jQuery JavaScript library with other JavaScript libraries e.g. scriptaculous or dojo etc. you might experience NULL object errors.

I was using Dynamic JavaScript Ad Rotator Slideshow script with my WordPress BLOG and WordPress theme I am using uses jQuery. I was getting “null” is null or not an object error whenever I was enabling my Dynamic Ad Rotator script. Here is a screen shot of the error.

And here is the code throwing the error -

jQuery().ready(function(){

    $(’#pingbacks’).hide();

    $(’#pingback’).click(function(){

        $(this).siblings(’#pingbacks’).slideToggle(’slow’);

    });

});

Most of the times the error was just because of the conflict, jQuery uses $ as a shortcut for “jQuery”. You can override that default by calling jQuery.noConflict() at any point after jQuery and the other library have both loaded. For example:

When you use more than one libraries with jQuery which use $ sign for selection of code block, use following script.

jQuery.noConflict();
// instead of $ use jQuery as
jQuery(document).ready(
function(){
});

This will remove the conflict between different libraries.

So the final code I ended up using is -

jQuery.noConflict();

jQuery().ready(function(){

    jQuery(’#pingbacks’).hide();

    jQuery(’#pingback’).click(function(){

        jQuery(this).siblings(’#pingbacks’).slideToggle(’slow’);

    });

});

And you dont need to use jQuery.noConflict(); if you are replacing $ with jQuery. That will be done by the script automatically.

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