Generally blogs have a very high bounce rates. If your blog has a bounce rate of 40% to 50% then you should be having great content. Usually, many blogs result in a bounce rate of over 80%. But there are ways to reduce your bounce rates.

What is a bounce rate?

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave your website without visiting any other page or before the specified session time.

According to Google Analysts, an accepted bounce rate would be between 20% and 50%. It also states that a bounce rate over 50% is a matter of concern.

Reason for High Bounce Rates

Blogs usually contain huge content, especially, if the blog is updated on a daily basis by more than one editor. Hence, search engines love indexing blogs. Search engines feel blogs have fresh content.

You would have noticed any information posted in your website appearing in Google’s Index in few minutes. This can result in the website ranking high even for unrelated content. If a visitor was searching for an online purchase and you had written an article about the product, the visitor might leave your site if he reaches and finds that you do not sell the product.

Similarly, many blogs have subscriptions. People who have subscribed for your articles would just read the article which interests them. Subscribers can also lead to high bounce rates.

How to decrease Bounce Rates

The best way to decrease bounce rates is make your website more interactive. This can make the visitor stay on your website.

1. While writing articles, also ask for feedbacks and comments on your thoughts
2. Let your articles be thought provoking and force the user to comment
3. Include a “Related Post” plug-in which can list related articles by using your tags.
4. Include a “Most Popular Posts” plug-in which can increase the curiosity of the reader
5. Reduce external links on your site. Try to open them in a new window if possible.
6. Optimize your site navigation. If you feel your template is not attractive or interactive, try using different templates until you finalize on one.

These suggestions can definitely help you decrease bounce rates. If you have any other suggestions, please feel free to post your comments.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a favicon added to your Wordpress blog? It not just looks cool it also builds a brand image. It also makes your blog visitors recognize your website as soon as they see your favicon. It is also identifiable when you bookmark it in your browser.

So said, how would you get the icon on the address box? It’s very simple.

Getting Started:

To create a favicon, you first need an image. Do you have a logo for your website? That’s what should go as the favicon. If you have not created a logo, search for a small clear image which would fit your website category . 

Creating Favicon.ico file

1. Goto Favicon generator
2. Upload the image from your computer using the “Browse” button in the Favicon generator.
3. If you wish to get an animated text gif icon, you can provide the text in “scrolling text”(Optional)
4. Click “Create Favicon”

You would get a preview of favicon.ico. On the right side, you would find the option to download favicon. Click on “Get It Now!”.Save the zip file to your computer. The zip file would contain four files:

1. favicon.ico
2. preview_16×16.png
3. preview_32×32.png
4. animated_favicon.gif

The favicon.ico is what you need. Extract it to your computer and upload the file to your root folder. For example, if your website is http://www.seo-mind.com then the favicon.ico should be placed as http://www.seo-mind.com/favicon.ico Usually, this would be the “httpdocs” or “public_html” or the “www” folder.

Adding the favicon.ico file to your Wordpress Blog:

Now that you have uploaded it, you would have to edit your header.php in your wordpress blog.

1. Log into your Wordpress admin section, choose “Presentation” and select “Theme Editor”
2. Choose “header.php” from the right side links and add the below line inside the head section.
   

   <link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”favicon.ico”>
   <link rel=”icon” href=”favicon.ico”>    

3. Save the header.php file

Now, refresh your website by pressing Ctrl+F5 keys. You should be able to see the favicon next to your website URL.If you are still unable to see the favicon, close your website and delete temporary internet files. Try opening the website again.

Usually, a basic paid hosting would provide 5 – 10 databases. Some of you would have used the all the databases. If you are one of them and wish to have one more Wordpress blog, then sharing the database would be a good option. This can also help better organize your database and also import, share or export user information easily

Installing more than one Wordpress blog using one database is quite simple. All that you need to do is go for a manual installation. Many hosting providers now provide a “one click” install which would take care of everything. Follow the steps below to create your Wordpress blog in the exisiting database.

1. Download Wordpress extract and upload it to the folder you wish to install.
2. Open wp-config.php file and search for the $table_prefix. The default would be 

   $table_prefix =’wp_’;

3. Change the prefix to a name related to your blog. If it is http://www.seo-mind.com, then change it to ‘wpseo_’ or something similar. This can help you recognize the blog tables in future.
4. If you are not familiar with editing wp-config.php file, change the default wp_ prefix when the Wordpress Configuration screen appears.
5. Just proceed further till completion. That’s it! You now have two Wordpress blogs running in a single database.

There are a lot many reasons why blogs can be useful to your SEO efforts. Blogs and blogging have become hugely popular in recent times. With free blogging by Wordpress, Blogger and other free open-source blogging applications, anyone who has little or no knowledge of coding can start a blog of his own.

Blogs give fresh content – Search engines look for blogs and forums generally for any topic of discussion. This is because search engines view blogs as a medium where fresh content can be obtained.

Easy Maintenance – Blogs are easily maintainable. They require few or no maintenance. Most blogging applications are search engine friendly. You would not have to end up spending huge time and resource in optimizing the website. You start to add content once you install the blog and choose your template. Installation would take few minutes.

Blog Growth – Blogs grow faster than any online medium. Blogs expand and interlink internally providing an excellent place for search engines to gather food.

Syndication – Blogs help syndicate your content to another website. This helps trade content which also helps external linking.

Social Media Bookmarking – Social Media websites provide huge scope for external linking. Getting your posts onto few social media websites can provide modest traffic back to your blog.