Blogging Tips

Creative Ways To Reduce Your Bounce Rate

by Melvin · Aug 17, 2011

As a blogger, its one of our goals to try to reduce our blog’s bounce rate. Of course, we all want to have people read our stuff and if possible stay on our site for a longer period of time. And do take note that its not just about staying on our blog doing nothing, its about them staying on our site but reading various content from us.

In this blog entry, I’ll discuss different ways on how we as a blogger can reduce our blog’s bounce rate.

What is Bounce Rate?

According to Google themselves, bounce rate is simply just the percentage of single or one-page visits on your site. This is also when a visitor exits on the same page as they entered. So as an example, if you visited this post and then left my blog through this post, you will be considered as a user who ‘bounced’ from my blog.

A very high bounce rate is indicative of various things like a).incorrect sets of audience for your site, b).poor content on your end and etc. So generally if you’re having a very high bounce rate, then you must be concerned that you’re falling into one of those two things I mentioned.

And you can read the following tips below on how you can reduce bounce rate on your site.

Ways to Reduce Bounce Rate

1. Have a landing page

I have been preaching on this method ever since and it seems that lots of bloggers don’t really understand the value of it. I’ve written a post on how using a landing page can increase your traffic but more importantly by using one, you are allowing yourself to attract the right people for your blog.

Think about it, a visitor is more likely to stay and navigate if he is directed to a specific landing page rather than straight to the homepage. Why would we want them to read our stuff more? We want to prove that we’re worth reading of course and that we know what we’re talking about.

2. Eliminate annoying elements

If you think about it, most people who navigate away from your site do it very quickly. Most of time its as quick as less than 10 seconds. There are various reasons for this but by analyzing it yourself, its more likely because they are annoyed on your site as a whole.

Most people don’t like ads, or they don’t like those lightbox popups. Some of them don’t like the sliders and all the fancy stuff. Obviously its hard to please everyone but you should at least try to please the majority. Easiest solution for this is to try minimizing your blog elements.

3. Write good content

Visitors don’t just land on your homepage or designated landing page. Most of the times they land on the specific blog post or article. With this, its very important to write good content to be able to persuade first time visitors to stay more and read more. You can do a simple test and compare your crappy posts from your best posts. You can easily spot the difference in bounce rate and see that your visitors stay with good content. Pretty fundamental tip!

4. Improve Loading Times

I am guilty of this myself. I used to sport themes before that load horribly slow due to lots of javascript stuff. As a result, lots of my readers probably just went away.

Make sure to work on always improving loading speed of your site. Check with Google Webmaster Central Site Performance Tool to see if your site is loading quick enough to satisfy the majority.

5. Minimize External Links

As bloggers, we’re naturally aren’t too shabby to hand out links to other bloggers. Its definitely not bad to give link loves but it sometimes has its own disadvantages and one of those is people going away from your own content. Another is diluting your pagerank although if you know me, I don’t really care that much about search benefits.

So just try to limit linking externally to other sites as it may be one of the reasons why your bounce rate is high.

Conclusion

Just like anything else, bounce rate is just a metric. I am always a proponent of studying your numbers and tweaking based on what it reflects. But still, you must never ever dwell too much on it. Don’t look at your bounce rate stats every 6 hours or so as it can obviously hamper your focus and productivity.

Personally, I do analyze my bounce rate a lot and do the necessary things that I think can help me out more in the long run. How about you? What’s your bounce rate and what’s your best tip to reduce it?

Five Things Bloggers Should Do That They Probably Don’t

by Melvin · Aug 3, 2011

This is a guest post entry by Jessica Wagner

Blogging is supposed to be fun. But in order to get good at it, you have to take it seriously. It’s not just a matter of establishing a destination on the Internet where you can spill your guts for whoever comes across it. If you truly want people to read what you have to say, then you should probably try to accomplish the following:

1. Keep up with current events

Nothing is sure to keep you more depressed these days, but then again, nothing is going to keep your writing relevant than maintaining at minimum a general understanding of world events. You might not find phone hacking and government debt debate interesting and certainly not something you want to spend your limited free time writing about, but being able to tie in the pulse of current activity with whatever you write about adds an extraordinary amount of professionalism to the look of your blog.

2. Utilize social networks

Sure, every aspiring blogger has a Facebook page and somewhere on it a mention or link to their blog. But that’s hardly utilizing social networks effectively. Convince several of your friends to be relays for these links, and find a way to bring Facebook to your blog via a “like” box or other application installation. Use social networks to spread your word. That’s what they’re there for.

3. Get a business valuation

Even if you don’t make squat from your blog, you aren’t aware of how much you could be making. An increasing number of business appraisals experts are extending their valuation expertise into the digital world. This means many appraisers can examine a blog or other website and determine whether or not there’s a potential for monetiaation. For anyone serious about earning extra income through their blog, this should be a serious consideration.

4. Yoga

Yoga enthusiasts claim the practice can help relieve the stresses of just about any situation with the exception of perhaps straining muscles through yoga. At any rate, any activity that centers on focus and physical as well as mental relaxation has to be healthy for those who love to write. Good writing needs a clear head and a clean bill of health, and taking the time to achieve both will do a lot of good for the quality of your blog.

5. Write everyday

The Internet is jam packed with blogs. Most of them consist of several entries over the course of a week or two, then reduced numbers of entries for about a month afterward. Several weeks go by, another post appears apologizing for a lack of activity, and that’s about where they end. Your first mission is to prevent this from happening to your blog. How? You make it your objective to post content on your site every single day. You should post multiple times a day if it’s possible. You need to build up content, but more importantly you need to make blog-writing as necessary a daily habit as exercise or brushing your teeth. Only then, will you have the blog existence it takes to capture peoples’ attention.

Melvin’s sidenote: Of course I don’t agree with the guest blogger’s take mainly because I don’t and can’t post everyday. But I hope you see the point that writing content for the long term is nothing but hardwork and dedication.

Don’t ever forget that writing a blog needs to be an enjoyable experience. But at the same time, don’t underestimate the seriousness of your task. If your writing is truly meant for the eyes of an audience, then you have to take steps to ensure you’re getting readership, that readership is increasing, and that you’re constantly supplying readers with more. You want people to keep coming back. The only way you do that is by giving them reason to keep returning for more.

The “Other” Things that You Can Enjoy in Blogging

by Melvin · Jul 31, 2011

So before I start everything else in this post, I just want to (proudly) let everyone know that I make money from most of my blogs and its one of the reasons why I really love blogging.

I said financial benefits is one of the reasons, the other half is the happiness and the satisfaction that it brings to me. It’s always been my mistake to write blogging and internet marketing tips to bloggers as if everyone is aiming at making money and being famous. It amazes me (and I’m thankful) when someone goes out in comments and says “not all people have making money on their minds and I’m one of them”. That gives me a very good realization that blogging for money like we do is just less than 10% of the whole blogging community.

I figured out that most people blog because they’re happy with it and it fulfills them greatly. That’s something that I’ve realized late last year and in this blog post, I’m going to tackle how you, as a make money online blogger can still be happy with blogging even though you’re not making that much money or not meeting your expectations financially.

1. The “intrinsic love” for blogging

When I started my blog MelvinBlog.com (see I’m not linking to it), I was very sure that I can do this forever AS LONG as I could make money with it. Its tricky but when I had hard times late 2009 and the blog wasn’t making that much money, I thought I would lose my interest in it but I was wrong.

The reason for that is the intrinsic love that I have for blogging for the topic. I do internet marketing since late 2007 and every time I talk about it in my blog, I really, really feel that great satisfaction for doing so. And that should be the case for most of us. People who have been blogging forever that aren’t getting compensated are the ones who have that “real love” for what they do and as a result, they don’t bother with the money that they make. That’s how I equally feel, how most of my blogging peers feel and hopefully that should be how you look at it as well.

2. The community

This second factor does not come immediately and it may take a while for you before you realize it.

The community is what makes a blog alive and without it, a blog is nothing but a plain static web entity. It just so happened that our blog community is one of the reasons why most of us stay and feel fulfilled. Imagine having tens of people, if not hundreds, commenting on our posts. Imagine thousands of people daily visiting our blogs even though its written by a simple person like us. Isn’t it self-fulfilling?

That does not even stop there. I know most of you here have received personal emails from your own audiences on how they’re so thankful for one of the things that your blog have done for them. It sounds corny, but that’s sweet right?

3. Friendships and relationships

While its very rare to see an occasion where two bloggers end up being into a romantic relationship (lol), forming friendships through blogging is a very frequent case. How many of you here have actually treated a blogger as a good friend of yours without even seeing or talking to that blogger in person? Yes, I know the feeling.

It doesn’t end with friendships. Most of the times, it leads to fruitful partnerships and joint ventures that can later on pay off for both of you.

You see, I could take 20 friends any time over 20 rotating 125X125 sidebar banners on my site. 😉

4. The Experience (with a big E)

Consider the following: I wrote a blog entry and got over a hundred comments. I got in front page of Digg, I got a thousand pageviews just this day for this post.

I can’t stress enough for myself how blogging has given me so much unforgettable experience in life. I was told that people don’t crave for things, they crave for experience and I can say that’s 100% true based on my experience.

All the things I mentioned above, the love for blogging, the community and the relationships. It all leads to a superb real-life experience on something. And I’m not just talking about good experiences that make us happy, I’m also talking about experiences that are a bit negative. No one actually forgets them and its equally memorable for us just as with the good ones.

5. The rewards (outside the money)

Every time I look back on what blogging has brought to me except the money, I usually end up smiling because it has brought me a lot more than I expected.

One of the best rewards that you can get from blogging is the increased expertise and brand that you get. “Who would think that by talking about this topic people would see me as an expert in this niche?” Is it not nice for us to realize that?

Another unsung reward is your personal learnings from it. I mentioned above that I learned blogging isn’t just about making money and we are just a minority of the blogosphere. That’s just one of the myriads of things that I’ve learned from blogging. I consider these learnings as a reward since I don’t really need to study something (formally) to gain those things.

I got tired of putting a heading called conclusion because not all blog entries have conclusions like this one right? I’ll let you put your own conclusion on this post. What do you think about blogging minus the “making money” part? Do you think its still as fulfilling?

Image credits to Smemon

Give Your Blog A Facelift!

by Melvin · Jul 10, 2011

Starting a blog is the simplest part of the process, but where it becomes difficult is holding onto the following that you have built. With so many people out there blogging, it’s hard to stand out from the white noise of the blogosphere. Many times it’s due to no fault of the blogger and more to do with the competition and viewers wanting something fresh and new. If you’ve noticed a lagging readership and a following that’s dwindling, consider giving your blog a facelift.

Reviving Old Posts

You’ve likely put a lot of resources in time and effort into coming up with each post. Though you’ve used them in the past, if the material is relevant, consider going back through your archives and pulling from the wealth of information that you’ve already offered to past readers. If it was a topical posting, then you probably should consider the shelf-life of it, but there’s no reason why good content shouldn’t continue to work for you. You don’t have to repurpose them and try and pass them off as fresh material. Use Tweet Old Posts. It might end up getting you some extra attention from people who didn’t follow you a year or two ago. The idea is to introduce new readers to older work. You might find that re-posting an article will get more traffic than when you were first starting out.

Socializing

We all know the power of social networking and when you put the power of information in the hands of people, it spreads like wildfire. It’s like taking the pulse of a demographic by getting their opinions trough something like a survey. Companies like Survey Head get in touch with people to see how relevant the content is. You want to be relevant to people and you should expose people to you content and allow the to freely react. By allowing readers the tools, on your site, to share your work with others you’re not only connecting to them but also their networks. It all snowballs from there. Tools like the Facebook Like feature are all about sharing information and making easier for people to interact and share content. Encourage readers to use these features and you’ll be amazed at what it will do for you numbers.

Guest Blogging

This approach works very similarly to social network. It is, in fact, a form of networking. Just as Facebook puts you in touch with a greater readership, making connections in the blogosphere could prove most beneficial for your success. You may have an excellent approach and opinion but you should realize that yours isn’t the only one. Consider this as a kind of free PR. By writing on other blogs as a guest, you’re getting your personality out there and connecting to an entirely new network of users that might not have otherwise ever heard about you. You’re trying to sell yourself and neglecting this avenue is a bad choice. You should also be commenting on other blogs. This is not a waste of time. Stay up to date and active in the blogosphere.

Try some of these approaches and try not to get disheartened. If you’ve been contemplating giving up because you’re just not seeing the excuse to keep it going, use some of these devices and see how it works. It might be just the thing you need to revitalize you lagging numbers and get your blog noticed.

Making Money Blogging What You Love

by Melvin · Apr 17, 2011

In a recent local blogging conference that I attended, I noticed that most bloggers here blog about things that they genuinely love and like. What I mean there is that they don’t blog about making money or blog about something that they would get easily bored. And of course that is always a good sign.

Just like majority of bloggers attending blogging conferences, these people want to make money with their blogs. In fact, maybe that’s a big reason why they attend conferences, to learn how to make money while blogging about something that they love.

But the question is, can you really make money blogging about what you love?

Two Part Answer

Yes

The first answer is yes, its possible. Look at a lot of famous bloggers out there. Darren Rowse for instance, loves photography so he has a blog with and he makes money. So that’s writing and blogging on a topic that he really feels good about. Look at the tech bloggers out there, they get a lot of free stuff because they write about technology. And writing for them isn’t hard at all since this is what they live and breath.

Another good example is myself. I blog about internet marketing and blogging and I make some money out of this blog too yet I really love to do internet marketing. I used to blog about basketball because I have passion for it and I made some money on that blog too. So the first of the two part answer is yes, it’s possible.

No

Obviously the second answer to the question is no (lol, its either yes or no so it shouldn’t be hard you to guess it ). One component that enables bloggers to make money from their blogs is the size of the market that they’re into. Imagine, most money is made because of things like advertising and selling products and stuff. And that only becomes possible when there’s enough people interested in that area/niche.

Take a look at the niches that we mentioned above. Internet marketing, technology, photography, making money online. Obviously what’s common with them is that a lot of people are looking for information about them. They’re scouring like mad people trying to find stuff to read regarding those things. For the most part, people are willing to spend for what they’re looking for! And when that’s the case, the thing that we love becomes profitable.

Now unfortunately it’s not a general rule which means it doesn’t apply to everything. Some people have interest in blogging about their own personal ramblings and they love to write about it. Problem is that’s not something that a lot of people are interested to so the size of the market is very slim and money is hard to make. Some others like to talk about let’s say naruto or some japanese anime. Maybe a good number of people are into the same thing but the monetization model that they can use is very limited thus very little can be made as well. Among all that, the size of the market is just one of the factors (but a very big factor to consider) that we must consider.

So that’s it. As what most people teach, the money can be made in blogging by finding the intercept between things that you care and things that enough people are interested too so that you’re not left out alone when you started blogging yourself. Not the most pleasing thing to hear but that’s how bloggers make good money out of doing something that they like.

I wanna know your opinion about. What do you think?

Minimizing Blog Elements and Why Should

by Melvin · Mar 5, 2011

One of the more noticeable changes in my recent blog redesign is that there are way fewer elements than ever. The 2.0 version of the blog before was probably the most cluttered design I ever had and even though I really, really like it, I realized that there really isn’t that much use for most of the elements in there. Heck that design even had 2 sidebars in it and a bunch of free space to play with.

I’m not sure if bloggers are aware but minimizing some of the elements is really the way to go. I would use this blog as an example. Before, I used to have so many elements and widgets on the sidebar, footer, header and etc. For instance, I had those recent readers widget, that mini navigator plugin, a bunch of list of links and a whole lot of redundancies (duplicate elements etc.). Then I evaluated, am I really using these elements? Do I benefit from putting some of it here and there? Or am I just wasting some space?

Obviously the easy answer is yes, I’m just wasting space. A recent reader widget is nothing but a widget to show some flair, a mini navigator plugin is a redundancy since users can navigate themselves using the menu bar, excessive number of ad zones also harm since no one’s really buying them. Aside from that I looked at my stats using a bunch of my tracking tools and I saw that users don’t really use most of the elements that I put in the blog. The behavior of most of my readers is that they check out a post or two and then comment and then leave. No one’s looking at this, no one’s clicking there and etc.

To add to that, I looked into my Google Webmaster Central and saw that my blog’s loading time is really slow (as slow as John Chow’s blog, lol). Those things have strongly convinced me that a change is needed.

Cut Out Some Elements!

So that’s my advice to you. Look, as an average web surfer/reader/lurker, we can only do so much on one’s site. I occasionally go to NBA.com but do I really use all of their features there? No, but NBA is an exception since its a large website and is widely visited by a lot of people all over the globe. But us bloggers? I know we all want to keep people browsing and staying for awhile but trust me, that’s not the way to go.

Another factor is loading time which I mentioned above. I live here in Asia and I know our internet here is just sub par comparing to countries like say US or Europe. If you have all those elements and 50% of your traffic is coming from a country that has a mediocre internet connection then that would give a bad user experience.

If those factors still don’t convince you then just remember the things I mentioned above. You have this, this and this in your sidebar and this in your footer. Ask yourself a question. What is this for? Do I benefit from it or does my readers benefit from this? Does it fit in well with my branding and stuff like that? Why not run some advance tracking tools on your blog to see if your readers are really noticing and using those things?

Believe it or not, I still feel that I need to remove some more elements here in this blog. I need to fill in some spots (dang I have four subfooters!) but I have to balance that with what I want and what I don’t want.

Lastly, look at some of the cluttered popular blogs around. Most of them made some redesigns recently and one thing to notice is that they have undergone a major revamp by removing things that they no longer need and by putting up a cleaner design. How about you? Are you ready to cut down the clutter and excess?

Social Media Users Finding Better Jobs After College? Probably.

by Melvin · Mar 1, 2011

This is a guest post written by Jayson Jones

It’s a virtual age. Life is shaped by technology, the days are defined by online explorations, and all college graduates have been exposed to the world of networks and exchanges.

It is only wise therefore to expect those exchanges to yield results beyond the common greetings. They are instead to offer potential careers.

Industry is changing. What was once a limitation of resources, a force of on-site conversations, has instead sprawled out. Virtuality now connects all companies; and graduates seeking to inject themselves into the fray must understand how to use this to their advantage. Social media dominates all things — and, while there can be no guarantee of succeeding through this venue, the statistics are shaded favorably. The benefits can’t be denied.

Career Decisions

The future is a vast thing — frightening with all of its possibilities. There is no certainty of victory, only the desire for it; and recent graduates may find themselves overwhelmed, unsure of what career path to take. Social media helps to lessen the burden, however. Individuals who don’t know how to properly tailor their degrees can use sites like LinkedIn to discover all of the many opportunities.

LinkedIn (established in 2003) is a business-oriented network that encourages those of similar fields to become aware of each other. As of 2011, however, it also offers a unique tool for guests: the Career Explorer.

Graduates can provide information like their experiences, degrees and interests; and the Explorer will then calculate potential positions. Paths can be discovered, rewritten and possibly even began all from the computer. This helps to ensure no decision is ignored.

Network Aid

The world of business is shaped to communication. No company is formed of silent managers, the dull employees. Instead there’s a demand for words and ideas. Networking helps to make those ideas a little easier to trade, though.

Popular sites like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit allow individuals to recognize all relevant posts and conversations. Instant access is offered, and this ensures that no graduate will be without the necessary updates. All can instead track corporations, note any career openings and follow developments. Knowledge provides a better chance for success.

Brand Building

No resume is enough. No first impression can be won with just a smile. This is a modern era and the traditional notions of earning careers are now considered antiquated. Individuals must instead understand who they are and what they wish to offer. They must build a brand. Social media provides graduates with the ability to present themselves to the world — through videos, blogs, RSS feeds and more.

All information can be charted out and posted. A brand can then be formed, with readers gained and a presence developed. This makes it far easier to contact companies, offering credence to all inquiries (rather than simply sending in a dull page and praying it isn’t overlooked).

Conclusion

Business is no longer confined to the standards of the past. It’s instead reaching toward the convenience of the present — and graduates are urged to do the same. There can be no promise of an online marketing career, but there can be a promise of potential. And that’s all many need.

Jayson Jones is an art student with a focus in Fashion Design. He’s an amateur blogger, and you can find his work at http://www.catwalkcatfight.com/, or follow him on Twitter @jaysonjonez.