If you have been blogging to make money online, then you must be aware of the importance of engagement metrics. You cannot do much if your blog has a higher bounce rate and lower page views per visit. You need to work towards improving these metrics.
Bounce rate is calculated as the number of people who enter and exit from the same page on your blog. You can keep track of bounce rate and page views details in your blog’s Google Analytics account.
Bounce Rate Formula = (Single Page Visits/ Total Number of Visits) x100
Suppose your blog gets 100 visits in a day and 50 people leaves from the same page (without moving to other pages on your blog), then the bounce rate for your blog will be 50%.
Bounce rate range varies from 0 to 100. 100 being the worst and 0 being the best bounce rate a website can get. Bounce rate of 50 or less is considered as an ideal or good bounce rate. If your blog bounce rate is more than 60%, you need to work towards fixing it.
Since you are blogging on WordPress, there are lots of plugins which could help you towards improving bounce rate for your blog.
Related Post Plugins
Having a related post section on your blog could help in lowering down the bounce rate to some extent. If you know coding, you can easily add related posts in your blog with ease. But if you don’t, there are ready to use plugins that you can easily help you install related posts on your WordPress blogs.
YARPP is the best plugin for showing related post on a WordPress blog especially if there are very few visual elements in your blog. If you want to show images from your blog posts, you should opt for Nrelate plugin as that will show thumbnails with title text at single post level (Can show related posts on Home page even). LinkWithin also does the same thing.
Plugins Useful for Content Interlinking
By interlinking your blog content, you will be able to lower down bounce rate of your blog. At the same time, you will be able to pass on the much needed page rank and trust rank to other blog posts of yours. You should interlink your blog content with the intension to add value for your blog readers. For content interlinking, you can manually interlink your blog posts or can give a try to SEO Smart Links type of plugins.
Plugins Useful for Speeding Up WordPress Blogs
Improving the speed of your WordPress blog has lots of benefits such getting better search engine rankings and better user experience etc. If your blog is taking lots of time to load, most of your blog readers will bounce from it and it will contribute towards higher bounce rate. You need to make sure you have a faster loading WordPress blog. There are lots of plugins you can try for improving the speed of your WordPress blog:
- For Faster caching, I would recommend W3 Total Cache plugin
- WP Smush.It plugin for image resizing
- Optimize WordPress database with WP Optimize plugin
- Use Performance Profiler Plugin to check the loading speed of all active plugins
Apart from this, you should deactivate and delete plugins you are currently not using or that you don’t really need. Once you are able to take your average loading speed to 3-4 seconds, you would feel the difference. I have written a detailed guide about improving the speed of WordPress blogs here.
Social Media Related Plugins
Installation of different social media icons and links on your blog will help you towards better search engine rankings as Social Media signals seems to be playing the major role when it comes about getting top rankings on Google search at least. Apart from this, the presence of Social Media icons will motivate your blog readers to share stories of their interest on different social networks. There are lots of plugins that can help you automatically add various Social Media icons at your blog home and single post level. My favourite plugin for adding social media icons is Digg Digg plugin.
Plugins for Attracting More Comments
it’s a great idea to attract more comments on your blog for improving bounce rate of your blog further. You should aim at replying to all comments on your blog. You should write engaging content and should end your blog posts with a question as that will help you receive more comments from your blog readers. There are some plugins you could actually use to attract more comments on your blog:
- Top Commentators plugin for showing top commenters list on your blog
- Subscribe to Comments plugin for allowing your blog readers to subscribe to comments section on blog posts of their interest
- CommentLuv plugin for adding latest blog posts from commenters blog towards the end of their comments
- Use dofollow plugin from semiologic.com to make links in the comments section as dofollow
- WordPress Thread Comment plugin for allowing your blog readers to reply to comments and their comments will be displayed in a threaded or nested way
I hope all mentioned WordPress plugins will help you in improving the bounce rate and number of page views per visit on your WordPress blog. How are you going about improving the bounce rate of your blog? Are you using any plugin to improve the engagement metrics on your blog? Please share your thoughts and concerns in this regard in the comments section.
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About anilagarwal
Top commentators plugin and related post, popular posts plugin is helpful in reducing bounce rate. Thanks for sharing this post.
Prakash recently posted..Hike Messenger Download for Symbian, Android, PC, iPhone, Blackberry
Is related post a better option than YRPP plugin ?
I use related post plugin
Aman recently posted..Bag It! v2.8 Updated February 6, 2013 apk download
This is very useful thread, i like this one sir :)
Aman recently posted..Elements Battle 1.0.6
Twitter: RaviBhushanSin4
says:
HI Anil! I am impressed with you. Really nice collection. Bounce rate is very important for the blog, here you mentioned that your wordpress plugin is helpful to improve the bounce rate of a blog. I am looking more ways to improve it. Well thanks for sharing your experienced with us.
Twitter: arafin_shaon
says:
1St of all tnx @ anilagarwal for the post . I think to improve bounce rate most crucial is to write quality content along with good interlinking. Interlinking blog posts is the best way to reduce the bounce rate and increase the SERP ranking and the best way to do this Insights plugin is the best i’ve ever found but you didn’t mention it in the post. May be you didn’t aware of it. Did you?
WpShouter recently posted..Load WordPress Comments on-demand
Hi Anil you have the awesome information about wordpress blog and and i am sure you have more information regarding the other blog.
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
Raj, I will be able to help you more if you are more specific with your question. If you ask me, I used to try lots of plugins on my WordPress blogs. If you ask me how I’m able to perfect onpage seo for my blog, I’m able to do so through Easy WP SEO plugin
Twitter: ikenedu
says:
Hi Anil ! Its very helpful for me. I am impressed with you . I think most of the new blogger have to suffer from this problem. This problem is not new for all the bloggers.but it is for new bloggers.,I am using relate plugin it works great for me and when it comes to plugin for comment,nobody can beat the comment luv plugin,it is truly awesome.Well thanks for sharing this post.
neha recently posted..Grade 10 – Science and Math Combo
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
That’s true Neha. We need to keep on trying different plugins to improve the performance of our WordPress blogs. For many years I was using YARPP on my blog, but recently I switched to Nrelate plugin. No doubt both the plugins are great, but my choice is Nrelate plugin
Anil Agarwal recently posted..How You Are Doing Link Building in Google Panda and Penguin World?
Twitter: BloggersGeek
says:
Good Post Anil Agarwal,
I like W3 total cache plugin, commentluv and do follow comment a lot. They are so helpful to increase blog’s traffic!
Perky Seraph recently posted..How To Make Money Blogging
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
Perky, if you are just starting out, it will be very difficult to make decision between an average plugin and excellent plugin. After using W3 Total cache plugin, speed of my WordPress blogs has improved to great extent. Initially I tested it on one blog only and once I feel satisfied it with its performance, implemented the same settings on other blogs as well.
Anil Agarwal recently posted..How You Are Doing Link Building in Google Panda and Penguin World?
Twitter: BloggersGeek
says:
Hmm, I see.
BTW great to read that you have other blogs too. I would love to visit your those blogs. I wish one day I will also be too efficient to run many blogs at a time like you. :)
Perky Seraph recently posted..Apple iPhone 5 Preview – Features, Photos And Prices
Twitter: Ajayudayagiri
says:
Maintaining Bounce rate at constant is more important, considering in aspect of SEO and Adsense income too. Interlinking the posts make good SEO with improving the bounce rate of the site.
Thanks for sharing.
Ajay recently posted..5 Best WordPress Plugins To Aid Backup Solutions
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
Ajay I feel presence of slider in the header section, breadcrumbs, popular and recent posts in sidebars should also help towards improving our blog bounce rate.
Anil Agarwal recently posted..How You Are Doing Link Building in Google Panda and Penguin World?
I’m all for giving my visitors a better viewing experience and I attribute my high bounce rate to my site’s disappointing loading speed. Thanks for the information you provided here.
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
Abhishek, now you can take lots of actions to improve the speed of your WordPress blog. If would be interesting to know how much these plugins helped in improving the speed of your WordPress blog and your experience about them.
Anil Agarwal recently posted..How You Are Doing Link Building in Google Panda and Penguin World?
Managing your sites bounce rate is extremely important especially when you are trying to improve your rankings on search engines.
jared recently posted..Those Other Detroits: Web Design, URLs, and the Power of Canon
Twitter: learnit2earnit
says:
anilagarwal: There’s just something about lists that always draws me in. I thoroughly enjoyed your list of ways to improve bounce rates & appreciate the links to the tools you find most useful. I particularly like the plugin that allows comment threading…makes “conversations” so much easier to follow & also enhances the visual appeal of the comment thread as well. Thanks for sharing such useful info!
Lynn Brown recently posted..Top 4 Tips To Attract More Visitors to Your Facebook Fan Page
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
Lynn, good to know my guest posts are helping you in solving some of your WordPress related problems. These words of encouragement will help me deliver much better content on We Blog Better in the form of guest posts.
Anil Agarwal recently posted..How You Are Doing Link Building in Google Panda and Penguin World?
Twitter: ipad89com
says:
The problem of high bounce rate is not new , i think most of the new blogger have to suffer from this problem. Thanks to the author for the list of wordpress plugin which can help to lower down bounce rate. I am also using a wordpress plugin (nrelated post) for lowering down the bounce rate
Md Firdosh recently posted..Samsung Galaxy S Duos & Galaxy Y Duos Lite Smartphone Features & Specification
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
Hey Md
How the bounce rate for your ipad blog is going? And how you are going about improving it further?
Anil Agarwal recently posted..How You Are Doing Link Building in Google Panda and Penguin World?
Twitter: Toptenplus1
says:
I personally love the related post plugin , it works great and helps greatly to decrease the bounce rate and help in increasing pageviews too…:)
SAJId recently posted..Top 10 Hottest Hollywood Actresses
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
Apart from related post plugin, any other plugin which helped you in improving the engagement metrics for your blog Sajid?
Anil Agarwal recently posted..How You Are Doing Link Building in Google Panda and Penguin World?
Twitter: lifenleisure
says:
Thanks for sharing these new plugins. I have already been using a few of these right now, and they have really helped out decrease my blog’s bounce rate tremendously. Of course, these plugins will only be most helpful if you got a lot of compelling content on your blog. No matter how many great plugins that you have, if you don’t have good content in your blog, plugins won’t be much help.
Adeline Yuboco recently posted..4 Reasons to Go on a Yoga Retreat
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
That’s very true. No tool of plugin can help you if you are not putting up great and high quality content on your blog. No doubt you can improve things on your blog if your content quality is great. Most of plugins will allow you showcase you blog content in different styles and different formats.
Anil Agarwal recently posted..How You Are Doing Link Building in Google Panda and Penguin World?
Nrelate Flyout and Related post plugins are really useful. I have observed a decreased bounce rate after installing these plugins.
Nice offer recently posted..Dhamaka Offer-VOX 4 SIM 3.5inch Full Touch Screen TV Mobile
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
That’s cool. Great to know related post plugin is actually working for you. Interested in sharing the bounce rate numbers for your blog before and after using these plugins?
Anil Agarwal recently posted..How You Are Doing Link Building in Google Panda and Penguin World?
A high bounce rate is a concern for many of us and bounce rate is also a factor considered by google for determining the relevancy of the websites….I am sure these plugins can be of great help, will check them out.
I also use the W3 Total Cache, it’s great for the load time and combined with the SEO Ultimate plugin that is pretty much all my SEO needs taken care of, in turn with a fast loading site and decent content in my opinion that’s all you need to reduce the bounce rate of your site, a good headline for your post/page is also vital, grab the users attention once then back it up with solid content and you are on to a winner!
James Crollins recently posted..5 Tips to Benefit from Payday Loans
Twitter: howzzzdat
says:
Thanks for the detailed info on “Related Post Plugin”. I was not aware of this plugin. This plugin can surely help to improve bounce rate of the blog. Will try it today itself.
Sameer recently posted..How To Improve Your Credit Score
Twitter: IGBALAYEOLAYEMI
says:
Those are very helpful plugin that can transform ones wordpress blog especially for the comments plugin..thanks for sharing
IGBALAYE OLAYEMI recently posted..Commenting vs Facebook for Fast Traffic Generation
Twitter: yeremiakpan
says:
Wow, plugins to the rescue!
Honestly, I never thought of it this way. Related posts plugins and SEO Smart Links are great ideas. I use them, but never saw them as a bounce rate limiter.
On the other side, have you considered the fact that plugins can also increase page load times? Thought I should mention that before some persons install twenty+ plugins to “engage” their audience.
Yeremi Akpan recently posted..Affiliate Product Selection: Four Tips that will Boost Your Income
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
Yeremi, no doubt we should limit the number of plugins we are using on our WordPress blog. But you should not face much issues speed wise if you have the right caching plugin installed on your blog. On my own http://bloggerspassion.com/ blog has 20 plus plugins installed which are in active state right now. By visiting my blog, you can analyse my blog speed.
I have seen people running their blogs with great speed even if they have 30 plus plugins installed.
We should be using one plugin for doing a particular task. And should delete those plugins that we are not currently using. Installation of W3 Total Cache plugin has really helped in improving the speed of my blog. You can get the complete installation guide here http://bloggerspassion.com/w3-total-cache-plugin/
anilagarwal recently posted..6 Must have WordPress Plugins and How to Use Them
These social media plugins are going to become even more important in the near future, I think. It’s looking like everything we do will soon be linked through the same accounts to create a more simplified experience, which would mean that every instance of your social media presence online would link to your blog content. It would be great to have that kind of linking power through social media, and I think the plugins available here are the precursors for that.
Twitter: ikenedu
says:
Is that type of plugins also available for blog spot? I have a blog on blog spot and its bounce rate is very high. Please tell me this type of plugins for the same.
Neha recently posted..Grade 10 – Science and Math Combo
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
Neha, there must be some widgets that can help you get the similar kind of functionality on your blogger blog.
anilagarwal recently posted..6 Must have WordPress Plugins and How to Use Them
Twitter: RajanRufus
says:
Bounce rate is very very important for the blog, here you mentioned that your wordpress plugin is helpful to improve the bounce rate of a blog. Am gonna try this for my blog. Thanks for sharing.
rajanrufus recently posted..New Firefox Developer Tools Help You Build Responsive Websites
Twitter: collegeocontent
says:
good stuff on sharing this valuable information. we love free WordPress plugins and how to improve SEO!
College of Content recently posted..Learn How To Brush Your Dog s Teeth
Twitter: KalpitJ
says:
Related posts plugin definitely improves the bounce rate to a great extent!
Kalpit recently posted..5 Best Cheap DSLR Camera – Affordable But Worth the Price
Twitter: exclsiveblogers
says:
well Anil,I am currently using nrelate plugin it works great for me and when it comes to plugin for comment,nobody can beat the commentluv plugin,it is truly awesome and one more thing one should not activate 30-40 plugins,use a plugin which is necessary otherwise not,Anyways thanks for sharing this useful article.
Ashish recently posted..Samsung Galaxy Note 2 Specifications:5 Things To Watch Out
Improving bounce rate is on the minds of almost every blog owner as google consider bounce rate as a important factor to judge the usefulness and relevancy of a website. These WP plugins looks worth trying.
Thanks for your post . I will try your suggestions. How about installing All in One SEO Pack , would that be useful?
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
This plugin will surely help in improving the SEO aspects on your WordPress blog, but should not have much impact on your blog bounce rate.
anilagarwal recently posted..6 Must have WordPress Plugins and How to Use Them
Thanks for this. I’ve been experiencing a very high rate bounce rate and I’m looking for ways to improve it!
Meena Thakur recently posted..Method to get Xbox Live Codes Absolutely Free
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
Meena, I hope the tips that I mentioned in this guest post will help you in improving bounce rate for your blog.
anilagarwal recently posted..Hostgator Coupon September 2012: 25% Discount on All Hostgator Hosting Plans
Twitter: RiftHunter
says:
Thanks for this. I’ve been experiencing a very high rate bounce rate and I’m looking for ways to improve it!
Twitter: RiftHunter
says:
Thanks for this. I’ve been experiencing high bounce rates and looking for ways to improve it.
RiftHunter recently posted..Prince Harry Emerges From His Cave – Public Appearance
You should allways use a SEO-Plugin. Especially the YOAST-SEO-Plugin is pretty nice. All-in-one-SEO works fine too, but doesn’t offer all of the functions of yoast’s plugin. Well, thank you for the listing, didn’t know all of them.
Mathias recently posted..Kurzvorstellungen aus der Philosophie: Anaximenes
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
Good to know. You are finding this guest of mine useful in someway
anilagarwal recently posted..Hostgator Coupon September 2012: 25% Discount on All Hostgator Hosting Plans
Ultimately if you’re creating compelling enough content, plugins can only make so many improvements.
Born27 recently posted..Internet Phone Calls
Twitter: micirox
says:
Though plug-ins to attract more comments tend to attract more spammers as well. But I guess spam filters can always take care of that :)
Blockbuster Diva recently posted..Valentine’s Day Movie Makes Heartbreak Special
Twitter: george_defo
says:
I have yarrp on my blog but since my blog has very few posts it doesn’t work. Commentluv is great but I see visitors commenting for the sake of commenting
george recently posted..5 ways how Google AdSense is cheating you of cash
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
You can give a try to Nrelate plugin as well
anilagarwal recently posted..Hostgator Coupon September 2012: 25% Discount on All Hostgator Hosting Plans
Twitter: gogetfunding
says:
All these plugins are well and good but I think the most important thing (and based off my tests) is speed (which i know you mention).
Be careful about how additional plugins reduce your speed and the first thing you should be working on is reducing load time. It really does significantly reduce bounce rate
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
You can use P3 plugin to keep track of loading time for all of active plugins. From it, you can make decisions about the plugins you want to keep and which one you want to delete if you can survive without them.
anilagarwal recently posted..Hostgator Coupon September 2012: 25% Discount on All Hostgator Hosting Plans
Twitter: gadgetfreaknews
says:
Really appreciate that you shared this wonderful plug-ins that I was not aware of. I surely think that this will help me get visitors on my site longer. Thanks
Twitter: bbt0786
says:
Hey!
thanks for letting us know about these plugin.
wordpress plugin have much important for bloggers as i know.so your suggestion is too good.It make your visitors in customers because there is low bounce rate.
bhushan recently posted..College Management System
Hey, Anil!
Great article and very good helpful information about Plugins. i like it i am a blogger so i can imagine that how much effort did you put in this i am going to share this post with my friends as well thanks buddy keep up the good work… Thanks for sharing.
Hi Anil,
Right now i am having a bounce rate of 60-65% on my professional website and what you have given i think will help me getting the bounce rate more down.Found these plugins helpful mate.Thanks.
Aditya recently posted..ERP Software Development
Twitter: sidgoyal1
says:
I think CommentLuv is the single biggest plugin which can really help reduce the bounce rate. Ultimately if you’re creating compelling enough content, plugins can only make so many improvements. The Oatmeal is an example of a blog writing compelling content. I don’t think that blog (which is not wordpress based btw) relies on any plugin!
Twitter: ditesco
says:
Hi Anil. Great collection of plugins. I think I may have used them all at one point in time. Just to give you a heads up. SEO Samrt Links is a great plugin, but “care” should be given to it, specially because of the Penguin issue. Problem is that the plugin “overuses” exact match anchor text throughout the site.
DiTesco recently posted..SEO Tips & Tutorials | Search Engine Optimization 2012
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
That’s true. We need to sure about the kind of actions and their impact, we are taking with SEO Smart Links type of plugins
anilagarwal recently posted..Hostgator Coupon September 2012: 25% Discount on All Hostgator Hosting Plans
I think this is one of the most vital information for me. And i’m glad reading your article.
Cigment recently posted..Hello world!
Hey, Anil! You wrote a very interesting post. I’m fighting to lower bounce rate as well. This post is very helpful. Thanks for sharing. Have a great week!
Cristian Stan recently posted..Best Snow Blower
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
Cristian, I would be great if you could share your bounce rate details once you have made the changes to improve your blog bounce rate.
anilagarwal recently posted..Hostgator Coupon September 2012: 25% Discount on All Hostgator Hosting Plans
Sure thing! Usually I get results after one month, at least that’s when I analyze the way my websites evolve. I have a lot on my mind right now, with the new changes, new projects, but I’ll bookmark this post so I won’t forget to come back with an update.
Cristian Stan recently posted..Circular Saw Reviews
Twitter: antonrsa
says:
Hi Anil,
Thanks for sharing the reviews on the different plugins. Especially the social media plugins you’ve mentioned – They do add a tremendous amount of value to your blog or website, if used (social media marketing and sharing) right within the various social and networking communities.
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
Anton, frankly speaking I’m a big fan of this social media plugin.
anilagarwal recently posted..Hostgator Coupon September 2012: 25% Discount on All Hostgator Hosting Plans
Twitter: Blogging_Fever
says:
In fact, I was one of the one who has poor bounce rate where one of my blog is having about 80%.
I started spreading my Analytics,check my top 20 contents and start editing those which has high bounce rate by adding internal linking.
It works better than adding the related post plugin in my opinion.
Alan Tay recently posted..How to choose a niche that never runs out of writing idea
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
It would be interesting to know the kind of changes you make in your blog contents to improve their bounce rate Alan. And how much improvement it actually resulted in your blog overall bounce rate?
anilagarwal recently posted..Hostgator Coupon September 2012: 25% Discount on All Hostgator Hosting Plans
Twitter: Blogging_Fever
says:
From 80%, I am not getting about 70%. I enhanced some of the contents which are too short and add more internal linking. For certain contents, I manually add related contents in the middle of the article with about 3-4 related articles (Something like the Related Post Plugin, just that this one is in the middle of content and it is done manually).
Alan Tay recently posted..How to submit your blog to web directory after Post-Penguin
Twitter: payable
says:
Hi Anil good share, am using few of the plugins which you mentioned above, also am concentrating more to publish an article about recent trends, and tutorial type post for the users to improve my bounce rate
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
caroline, I recently written about how one can improve the bounce rate of their WordPress blogs here http://bloggerspassion.com/how-to-reduce-bounce-rate-and-increase-page-views-for-wordpress-blogs/
anilagarwal recently posted..Hostgator Coupon September 2012: 25% Discount on All Hostgator Hosting Plans
Twitter: mikecoder
says:
I like the “w3 total cache” plugin – it helps my blog to load quickly and I think that’s what SEO is meant to be. Quality content in a blog that’s slower than a snail is failure in the making. Most of the plugins you shared are truly awesome. But we should minimize their usage and be careful where we download them. There are hackers everywhere and using a plugin is the easiest way to WELCOME these hacking Whoremongers.
Michael Chibuzor recently posted..The 5-Virgin Reasons Why Content Marketers Must Build An Email List
Twitter: bloggerspassion
says:
That’s true Michael. We should be very careful when giving a try to a plugin on my blog. Most of the time, I give a try to any plugin on a demo site of mine. Once I’m fine with its performance, I may go on installing it on my main income blogs
anilagarwal recently posted..Hostgator Coupon September 2012: 25% Discount on All Hostgator Hosting Plans