89% bounce rate on edgy.app

[dukefx]

Hi y'all,

we relaunched our news site recently and cut the average load time from 10 seconds to 3 seconds. On fast connections, it can load in half a second.

The impact on bounce rate has been ZERO, which is very disappointing.

What practical changes would you make to the site to reduce bounce rate?

 

[Deleted member 657006]

good metreial.
grate articles
best news
intresting news
celebrates news

 

[solononforever]

Share more metrics, I wanna know how long the average user who bounces spends on your site and where you're getting your traffic from?

Otherwise I'd say choose a different theme that showcases more content on the front page without having to scroll and have more appealing niche content & thumbnails to drag your target audience in a post.

 

[tightmetrics]

I don't see a lot of compelling content.

 

[mhtro]

Not click-worthy content, no catchy titles/images. The website looks clean asf and I appreciate it but It doesn't look like a news website but more like a website that will try to sell me stuff.

 

[dukefx]

Share more metrics, I wanna know how long the average user who bounces spends on your site and where you're getting your traffic from?

Otherwise I'd say choose a different theme that showcases more content on the front page without having to scroll and have more appealing niche content & thumbnails to drag your target audience in a post.

Site is 100% white hat with no link building, almost all traffic is from organic search.

New user segment for the past 7 days:

Home page is not too bad - bounce rate wise - but article pages generally are bouncing very highly.

Marketing category pages bounces extremely high too, but it should not be a landing page on its own - not sure where that traffic comes from. It's the same layout as the home page, do they not care about marketing content?

Here is an individual marketing article example ... people coming from the home page have 50% bounce rate on it (they stay on the site), people who come to the page from search bounce 100%.

Article pages have varying bounce rates, but the most normal bounce rate is 90%+.

Not click-worthy content, no catchy titles/images. The website looks clean asf and I appreciate it but It doesn't look like a news website but more like a website that will try to sell me stuff.

Thank you for your feedback @mhtro.

Why would you think it would try to sell you stuff? We run no ads and expressly try to put the user first.

What would be an example of click-worthy content or catchy titles/images? Keep in mind that I'm trying to run a quality white-hat page, which means that the team is instructed to avoid click-bait titles.

I don't see a lot of compelling content.

Thank you for your feedback @tightmetrics, what would you consider examples of compelling content?

 

[ravid32]

Is there anyway you can add links to related articles at the bottom of the current article to try to get some page view? That for sure will lower your bounce rate.

 

[dukefx]

Is there anyway you can add links to related articles at the bottom of the current article to try to get some page view? That for sure will lower your bounce rate.

@ravid32 thank you I've thought about this, so now I'll definitely try that this month. do you think image previews will help, or are text links preferable?

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

@ravid32 thank you I've thought about this, so now I'll definitely try that this month. do you think image previews will help, or are text links preferable?

Image previews almost always work better than a text link.

 

[solononforever]

@ravid32 thank you I've thought about this, so now I'll definitely try that this month. do you think image previews will help, or are text links preferable?

https://mouseflow.com/ - use a site like this to collect more data about what your users are doing in those 21 seconds, a/b split test ... change the thumbnails, then change the titles, then change the content that shows up on the page and then the theme itself.

You need to let us know your traffic sources / target audience too

 

[ravid32]

@ravid32 thank you I've thought about this, so now I'll definitely try that this month. do you think image previews will help, or are text links preferable?

Image preview.

 

[dukefx]

https://mouseflow.com/ - use a site like this to collect more data about what your users are doing in those 21 seconds, a/b split test ... change the thumbnails, then change the titles, then change the content that shows up on the page and then the theme itself.

You need to let us know your traffic sources / target audience too

Here you go, traffic sources:

Target audience is a bit of a mix of tech/sci nerd and business.

 

[Stavro]

What is the purpose of the site? What is it you want your viewers to actually do once they finish reading an article?

You're approaching this from a designer's point of view, instead you should approach this as a reader coming in blind. Once you finish an article, where would you go next? There is no related articles section, the only category listing is in the footer, and the closest thing to a CTA is the Twitter link.

Even on the homepage, there's no real coherent theme to the site, the topics jump between vinyl records, payday loans, antibiotics, and so on. You're clearly not aiming for this to become a niche site, but at the same time your content selection is nowhere near broad enough to be a meaningful news site, and your articles are nowhere near compelling enough for sales.

At first glance, this site really looks like a PBN, and your footer blurb only reinforces that. If this is meant to be something else, then I'd suggest that you narrow down to a sub-niche, swap out all the current content for unique and compelling articles, and give your readers a clear path to explore the rest of your site.

 

[dukefx]

What is the purpose of the site? What is it you want your viewers to actually do once they finish reading an article?

You're approaching this from a designer's point of view, I'd suggest spending a full day or two away from the site, then opening an article directly and following it as a reader would. Once you finish the article, where would you, as a reader, go next? You have no related articles section, the overly broad listing of categories is in the footer, and the closest thing you have to a CTA is the Twitter link.

Even on your homepage, there's no real coherent theme to your site, the topics jump between vinyl records, payday loans, antibiotics, and so on. You're clearly not aiming for this to become a niche site, but at the same time your content selection is nowhere near broad enough to be a meaningful news site, and your articles are nowhere near compelling enough for sales.

At first glance, this site really looks like a PBN, and your footer blurb only reinforces that. If this is meant to be something else, then I'd suggest that you narrow down to a sub-niche, swap out all the current content for unique and compelling articles, and give your readers a clear path to explore the rest of your site.

Very valuable feedback.

The purpose of the site is to build an audience (like theverge) and at the same time test out SEO stuff on ourselves.

 

[BrandingCat]

The theme is not UX at all, look like a blank page and centered text, or wait...it`s almost like that

 

[MrRandQm]

First thing I see is an article with a typo in the headline. Not really convincing me to stay when i see stuff like that

"how music STEAMING helped vinyl make a comeback"

 

[dukefx]

First thing I see is an article with a typo in the headline. Not really convincing me to stay when i see stuff like that

"how music STEAMING helped vinyl make a comeback"

Fixed. Thank you for pointing that out. We've got over 2500 articles on the site and occasionally we'll miss something.

 

[dukefx]

The theme is not UX at all, look like a blank page and centered text, or wait...it`s almost like that

@Meddie thank you for the feedback. How would you change it for the better? I tried to go for readability and reduce distractions. Font size and number of characters on one line, custom font for readability, and good whitespace. Do you have some examples of sites you admire the post pages? (in context of bounce rate)

 

[Gogol]

I would say:

1) Content topics - when I am searching for "why vinyl made a comeback" , I would rather want to watch a video than reading a story. If this article had a video with it, I would have stayed.
2) Usability - this app looks a little too simple for what it is. I would have loved to see something more complex, perhaps some different color combinations too. Here's some things I don't like :

a) There's no defined outline for the main menu area. Bottom border would better.
b) The logo needs more flair, may be try different color/gradient for D and G in the logo.
c) In your post page, the featured image eats up 1 and 1/2 folds of content area. I would come and leave easily if I saw that. Try optimizing the space there so that this space is not wasted.



P.S. -> It's all my personal opinion as a user.

 

[BrandingCat]

@Meddie thank you for the feedback. How would you change it for the better? I tried to go for readability and reduce distractions. Font size and number of characters on one line, custom font for readability, and good whitespace. Do you have some examples of sites you admire the post pages? (in context of bounce rate)

If you want to focus,better go on single page with no sidebars.