How One Simple Change Can Slash Your Bounce Rate

Have you ever tried speed dating? If, not I’m sure you’ve heard the stories: Miss-matched couple awkwardly sits across from each other. His ideal date is beer at a Nascar race; hers is sipping organic tea at the local vegan cafe. At the end of five minutes, they quickly move on and eventually find better matches.

How does this relate to bounce rate (and how does this impact online fundraising donations)?

Folks bounce onto your site from another site only to find nothing of interest. They quickly bounce off and eventually find the content they’re after. Nothing personal - just a bad speed dating match. But half the battle with online donors is getting folks to stick around long enough to take their wallet out!

While reviewing my bounce rates a few weeks ago, a lightbulb went off: “I’m unintentionally presenting a bad match for these folks!” For example, I noticed that I had a high bounce rate with folks coming from Twitter. The URL in my Twitter profile was set to my home page, which displays dynamic pages (most blogs display the latest posts at the top - the first thing a visitor sees). When I posted topics related to phone skills, folks bounced right off my site. I changed this URL to a post titled “What If Shel Silverstein Used Twitter?“ That one change alone caused a huge dip in bounce rate.

The lesson?

Four ways to use relevant links:

• Comments - It goes without saying that leaving comments on any blog should be done with one question in mind: How can I add value to this discussion? Instead of adding your home page in the URL field (which is the lazy man’s first response),  use a page from your site that is relevant to the post topic. Even if your site is about something very different, be creative with finding relevance. Our speed-dating couple may never meet again, but what if the Nascar guy found out that the Vegan girl’s uncle refurbished 1969 Chevy Novas?

  Perma-link tip: Make sure your link URL structure contains the title of the page (For example, “http://www.corporatedollar.org/2008/10/how-one-simple-change-can-slash-your-bounce-rate/”). This syntax will increase your search engine rankings.

• Question Forums - Same idea. LinkedIn has an Answers section where you can even leave multiple links. When posting your highly valuable answer, add one or two links to content on your site that expands upon your answer.
• Social Networking Profiles - In most social networking profiles, you can enter your website. Again, use a page that will be immediately relevant for folks coming from that site. Something that’s often overlooked is sections where you can paste html code (bios, interests). Don’t go overboard, but add a couple of links where the content directly relates to a recent post. For example, on your Stumbleupon page, you could talk about a recent campaign that leveraged social networks to spread the word. Embed a link directly to that story, the results and a “Missed Out? Donate Now” button.

  Note: If they don’t donate, they’ll at least stumble that page to others.

• Who’s Your Audience - All social networks have a prevalence of a certain type of person, and it’s important to consider this when deciding what page they’ll see first. Twitter has folks that are interested in blogging and new technologies, LinkedIn has folks interested in topics related to professional careers, Squidoo has folks that are interested in sharing their expertise (and Facebook has folks that, well…. have access to a computer). Now - imagine these folks have found your site and say, “Wow. This is interesting….” What page are they looking at?

Where else can you apply the concept of relevant linking?

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If you liked this, you should read these:

Don’t Be A Twit When You Tweet On Twitter 7 Reasons Non-Profits Rock At Social Media Why Your Non-Profit Needs Google Analytics The “Rules of The Road” For Non-Profit Social Media

Related posts:

1. How To Be Highly Relevant On Twitter (and every other social media site too)