Readers come and readers go, but do you ever take a look at your pages per visit? That handy information is available in most analytics software and documents the average number of pages per visit to your site before someone heads off elsewhere in search of different content.
Business Model:
For most blogs, your goal is to obtain readership, build a community, and perhaps make a buck or two. If that’s the case, you want to have a high PPV. However, there are some business models that prefer a lower PPV – a customer service organization perhaps (they’re hoping you find your information quickly and get back to using their product!)
Importance of Pages Per Visit:
Your PPV tells you whether your content is compelling enough to stick around and how easy it is to navigate your website. The average blog pages per visit is said to be <2 (for reference), but it never hurts to try to rise above this.
How to Increase Your Pages Per Visit:
Because the PPV number is directly related to navigation – your navigational elements need to be extremely clear and concise. If a reader can’t follow your category structure, they’re bound to bounce out after reading the one page they landed on. Here are some other ways to keep someone on your site:
- Use the “More” tag on your index page. This will push readers to go to a second page to finish reading the article, view multimedia elements, etc.
- Add “Related Posts” at the bottom. This quickly allows readers to find related content when they are finished reading your post. There are several WordPress plugins that do this automatically!
- Hotlink your keywords. By hotlinking keywords and categories within your post, users can quickly navigate to find pages full of content related to their interests.
- Incorporate search functionality. Make sure your search works, and works well!
- Highlight popular and most recent posts. You can easily incorporate plugins in your sidebar that will pull in the posts with the most comments, the highest pageviews, or your most recent posts. This allows a user to quickly navigate to a post that is of interest, and allows them to join in the discussion.
Nikki Katz is the Managing Editor for the BlogWorld Blog. Feel free to follow her Twitter @nikki_blogworld and @katzni
Image Credit: SXC
Recent Comments