Do More With Your Traffic - Decrease Bounce Rate and Bring Visitors Back with Wordpress

Editor's Notes

• #2: Hello welcome to ___ Engagement, Why matters, How to measure and How to Improve it Actionable Tactics to: UX Decreased Bounce Rate Improve Engagement Move Down Sales Funnel
• #4: “I need more Traffic!” – sometimes true. More often, websites and businesses need to do more with the traffic they already have.
• #5: There’s a lot more to customer retention than specific website tactics, but it’s obviously important to keep people coming back.
• #6: We know most people don’t start at the bottom of the sales funnel. Otherwise, it’d hardly be a funnel. It’d be a sales isosceles triangle. We need them to keep coming back. Even if they converted on the first trip, we just saw how important customer retention was. We need to keep them coming back. Today I’m going to go through some great ways that you can do more with your current traffic, make your brand more memorable, defeat bounce rate and bring your visitors back!
• #9: Talk over here’s your answer to reduce bounce rate! Explain how plugin works.
• #11: Remember 2 types of bounce Rate! Obviously stumbleupon traffic is going to bounce at a high rate. Same with referrals from within an article or piece of content. Are the traffic driving keywords logical for your site? These two things will demonstrate where you’re losing traffic.
• #12: Avoid this when someone comes to your website.
• #14: There’s a few aspects to readability that I want to go over. All of these will improve your site’s engagement, and decrease your bounce rate. Average American Adult reads at 7th or 8th grade level. Having clear, concise verbiage makes your pages more powerful and keeps users engaged.
• #15: Make sure it’s easy to read your content. This includes the layout of your page: When a user lands on your site it should be clear right away where your content starts. Also, make sure it’s readable on all devices. Think about the oldest person you know. Could that person read your site? I just take off my glasses and check to see if I can read it.
• #16: So how do you please the scanners? Sub headings that are unique. Your h3, h4 and h5 shouldn’t be a slightly smaller version of their h1 and h2 brethren. They should be a different color, a different font. Make it clear what’s a subheading. Images that actually shed some additional information or some context. At least something that looks good. Stock photos generally add nothing. Additionally, they create emotional responses in users for better additional engagement. To break up the text into small chunks Make important text stand out within paragraphs.
• #18: Here’s two examples of ways to do it. Top – BGR keeps their main navigation and search function. Bottom – Modern Farmer has their social icons and post title. Plus, a link back to the homepage. Don’t underestimate the importance of keeping your logo in front of others. Logos, graphics and pictures cue memories in ways that words cannot. A user is far more likely to remember your site by logo than by style of writing. http://wordpress.org/support/topic/how-to-make-you-header-navigation-menu-fixed-to-the-top-when-you-scroll
• #19: Every single blog should have related content! You recall that stat before … a visitor who visits 2 is 50% more likely to come back. Well here’s one of the best ways to get them to view a second piece of content. There are obviously other factors at work here. Things that I can’t test for, but this site gets a ton of traffic so we have a good amount of data to use. If page views are more your jam: 31.7% increase after a month. 24.3% increase after 3 months. There are a ton of different ways to implement related content with Wordpress. I’m going to go over 3 of my favorites including the one that led to these results.
• #20: The contextly widget is my favorite way to display related content. This is the one that lead to the increases in engagement I showed you earlier. Setup – There are a few more steps, but far more control over the appearance of the recommendations. Colors, fonts, etc. are all set up in that process as opposed to CSS. You’ll probably have to use CSS to get it to perfectly match your site. 2 Types – Backend – You’ll have the option to choose the related posts that show up. They also offer a function called “Interesting Posts” which automatically chooses the posts. Both are powerful ways to get relevant content in front of your readers. You also choose the posts that display in the sidebar. The reason I like this the most – You can keep a promoted link or a row of promoted links showing to your visitors at all times. Let’s say you’ve got a squeeze landing page that isn’t getting much traffic? Put it in the recommended links! Sell products online? Use a row of recommended content to show off your products! Any page or post can also be added into the sidebar. You can see how powerful this can be.
• #21: The latest version of Jetpack offers related posts! I was really excited to see this addition. This is, without a doubt, the easiest way to implement related content. Any schmuck with a site can put this to use. You essentially get 2 options to display related content at the bottom of posts – Headlines and Headlines + Featured Image. - This can be customized with CSS to match your site’s design. It does work with custom post types. You can create your own functionality plugin to extend the power of this plugin. However, the default version offers no editorial control and there’s no related content options for above the fold. Jetpack also has a “most popular posts” widget that works similarly to the recommended content. This is one way to get recommended content above the fold. Why is above the fold important? Because people don’t scroll all that often. Slate readers typically only make it about halfway through an article or the 1,000 pixel. Not that far.
• #22: Describe flyins. Add This – Auto generates content based on the user. This can be good and bad because it scans your entire site. UpPrev – Previous, Previous in category, previous in tag, random, or related (chosen by YARPP) Nrelate – The most options to set up what shows to users.
• #23: This is the only mobile specific option we have, which is often a place where common related content (bottom of the post) is lost. You’ll synch up your Google Plus to your site with a few codes on both end. Google offers a few good settings for controlling which content does or does not appear in the recommendations. It’s a powerful way to suggest more content to mobile users, all while making the Big G happy. To make this work you’ll have to share your content on Google Plus, which you should do anyway. Again, praise the Big G.
• #25: Yea there’s a lot of options out there. Some of these are focused on paid links with your content incorporated.
• #26: I love pop ups as a marketing tool. There’s no better way to capture your readers attention than by forcing them to take an action (Yes, No, Leave). These are mostly used for email subscriptions. This person was willing to forego any possible annoyance by showing the popup relentlessly. How do we find the right balance between increasing our conversion rate?
• #27: These 3 things all need to be advertised differently. Just because I read the first paragraph of your article does not mean I want to join your mailing list. I may be interested in a white paper. Whereas if I’m viewing my second article I very much may want to join your email subscriber list. Page Specific pop-ups – Make your pop-ups unique to specific pages so that you know they’re always relevant. Create a pop-up for a supplemental piece of content. If they’re reading about apples, tell them your email list will talk more about apples. Squeeze landing pages probably aren’t going to be great for a landing page but your company blog probably is. See what’s working. Please, please, please keep it fresh. There’s no better way to alienate long time readers than showing them the same thing over and over again.
• #28: Both are extremely powerful light box plugins for Wordpress. You can get by with the free version of Optin, but tons of more options open up in pro. Ninja – Mobile Responsive Optin – Exit Intent Function
• #29: This one is simple, but important. Do not link strictly for SEO. Think of the people like the People’s Champion The Rock! When you stuff internal links (which doesn’t even help your SEO. It might hurt it) you’re treating your visitors like crap. Plus you lose trust in your links and people will stop clicking them. This includes every link on your site … main menu, header, footer. Make sure you’re providing value at every step.
• #30: Guess where all 6 of those links go? The same page! Guess how often those words are mentioned on that page? 1 paragraph out of about 700 words. It’s about halfway down the page. Only internal link when you actually expect someone to click. Please. This strategy will make it far more likely someone actually clicks your links. Now onto another way to engage with your audience.
• #31: No one wants a visitor to land on a 404 page. But it happens. When it does happen, let’s keep them on your site! Make sure there are quality links on the 404 page, plus your main navigation. Tell them what your most popular pages are. Give them direction! Live search is a great way to help that person find the thing they were looking for I love this option. Give your visitor a chance to contact you. This gives you a chance to respond back to them! It’s an opportunity to start a conversation, to make an impression, and to move them along the sales funnel. Lets check out some examples:
• #32: Holy under used space Batman.
• #33: Really? That’s it?
• #34: Search is the obvious option. Navigation was included on the page, but isn’t pictured here. This was also a gif.
• #35: ESPN does an auto search for you. That’s even better.
• #36: Moz has options to contact about broken page, and a bunch of popular options. Not to mention a cool graphic. Now onto pages we actually want people to go to …
• #37: Well isn’t that wonderful. *PAUSE* This is your customer … why are you giving them this!? If they’ve reached a thank you page, the sales process is probably not over. Tell them that!
• #38: Confirmation - say thanks and confirm that they completed the action correctly. Next Steps - Lay out what the next steps will be. If possible be more specific then “We’ll contact you soon.” Will you email, call? How do I receive the e-book? Will I get a tracking URL? Maybe they can call and take the next step themselves? Remind them why you’re the best - Testimonials, awards and case studies reassure the visitor that they made the correct choice. Show them people - Show them people! Either people enjoying your product or service, or your employees who they will be speaking with. A face goes a long way. Social Media, email Lists - This is the easiest thing to implement on your Keep them in touch with you and keep them coming back!