Reduce bounce rate on forums

[Dani]

What are some ways specific to forums and online communities to help reduce bounce rate?

[Kelly Burby]

I don't think that there's much you can do other than trying to make the forums and online communities a little more interesting. Also as a new user if I warrive over to a forum and I am not famaliar with the working of the forum, there's should be a moderators or someone who can assist in telling "hey you are interested at this place why don't you go over their" it can be acheived by telling the new users after sign up to head over to that particular "xyz place".
Most of the coummuity practices are like if I join the a new community I say "HI" a number of users came and say hi but none of them mention that we have this and that threads where you can seed and all ! Also to increase engamement of the visitors make sure that you have all updated news that one can look for... each and every questions smust be answered in the fastest manner. Addition of more different simileys will aslo be a good way to keep user interest also there's should be some different ranking status like if you make 10000 vaild post then you will be given moderation priviledge as this would make sure that a member have good amount of post keeps comming back and that's surely going to help in reducing bounce rate!!!

[bijutoha]

You mean you wanna know about reducing bounce rate or how you can decrease your bounce rate on Fourm or Online communities? I think, all of experts are know that what are the main causes of increasing bounce rate on a website. such as below

1. Low website speed. 2. Bad and Ugly layout with slow navigation.
2. Too many adds, videos that are going to show by Pop-ups. 4. Low quality contents. and so far.

And these causes are not only for websites, Certainly including forums, communities etc. Beside them, different types of topics with worthwhile answers can decrease your bounce rate on Forum like DaniWeb. Oh! another thing is that reliability makes the members interested to spend long time there.

[almostbob]

IF the site is well constructed and well indexed, the casual user will be directed by the SE to the page that answers the question, one page: success, not bounce: failure

Reduced bounce rate; the need to access second or subsequent pages, bad design or bad SEindexing, the casual user has to browse to find the answer
Bounce is not always a sign of failure, in a Q&A setting it is a sign of success

In Daniweb the most appropriate answers, however chosen, appear immediately below the question, even if they are on page 3 by date and time,

1 page; success

members, and those who become interested, will always read through multiple pages

[happygeek]

I Think Bob has hit the nail on the head in as far as for DaniWeb the majority of users are coming to find the answer to a single and specific question. They succeed and then go. Attempting to retain those people is the challenge, and that can only be answered by user engagement. In terms of community building that means we have to tempt them into becoming more engaged with what we have to offer over and beyond the immediate 'solution fix' that they came for. Maybe the related articles section needs to be both more impactful and better tweaked towards content that will hold interest? Once members have hung around a little by way of content exploration, then they have to be motivated into participation; the member rewards scheme is a good case in point although most of the long term and most valued members participate because they want to. Finding out why they want to, what drives them, may be a good idea? Perhaps a valued member survey of some sort is in order?

[almostbob]

Thinking again of the Q&A :edit:fromat << ha ha I can't spell <<:/edit: format
Perhaps,for those referred by SE, some ,
"did this answer solve your problem?,
do you need to ask another question?"
[checkbox/input/somethng] that directs them to register and then returns them to the same forum ask a new question page

[Dani]

Ah, I think I forgot to clarify between bounce rate and adjusted bounce rate. As almostbob pointed out, with Q&A type content that is the result of a Google search, it's often the desired outcome that the person finds what they are looking for and then leaves happy.

Therefore, an important metric is ABR (adjusted bounce rate), which considers users who stay on a page for a certain duration of time (> 1 minute, in the case of DaniWeb), and don't immediately hit the back button, as not a bounce.

[almostbob]

1 minute,
I take about 30 seconds to read question, featured reply, and the first 2-3 general answers
when SEOing; the time for user retention, the display of useful content is settled at around 8 seconds

I know nothing about C++,

I went to the C++ forum:
opened a question at random,
read the question,
googled code syntax,
read three replies, from the op and a guru
and began to understand the code,
the OP made an update as 4th reply . . .
but
then the countdown timer pinged:1 minute

If I were just looking for an answer, I would not reach a minute, I'd be gone to try it out in about 30s

[couponsgrid]

Bounce rates implies the visitors arriving at your website are not much interested and are leaving within few seconds. The reason may be anything either they reached there and didn't find content or website of their choice.
or as some of the reasons are already stated above, the website might have slow speed, uninteractive layout or low quality content etc.
Make your products and services more accessebile and visible for your visitors.

[Psvenson]

A lot of what has been said is spot on, reducing bounce rate has a lot to do with site speed and layout. If the site doesn't look right to the eye or is confusing I leave. A high bounce rate can also be caused by visitors not getting the information they are looking for, or what they thought they were looking for. Sometimes a proper meta description can really help bounce rates

[Dani]

Almostbob, I have the timer set to a full minute to err on the side of caution. 30 seconds could be a positive experience, but my guess is that 60 minutes is most likely one.

[danielmav]

It's good to add related thread/ answers when someone is searching for an answer of a particular question. Need to encourage users to participate and contribute. We should give multiple login options so they don't have to provide much information in filling all the details.