I have been working with one single blog post lately to optimize it. When you used to search for “micromanagement” in Google, you would find my blog post at the top of page four. When you search for it today you will find it at the top of page two, this is number 11 of 464.000. I am very satisfied with the progress this blog post made. So what have I done? In this blog post I will share what I have done and what I achieved. Some results are more surprising than other.
Re-writing and correcting misspelling
Norwegian is my native language, so writing in English can be a challenge. I got help from a good friend to proof read this article and correct the language in it. I made use of H2 header tags, I used the micromanagement word in one of the headings. I made sure to use it in the title, description and keyword meta tags. I used it also two more times in the text. The article is better and it is also more optimized for search engines.
The project and the article
I am refering to the “Dealing with Micromanagement” article at Never Mind the Manager - I wrote “What is Bounce Rate?” earlier as a part of this project. My project is to reduce the bounce rate at Never Mind the Manager within the next 10 blog posts. (8 to go as this is written)
What is the result so far?
First thing first my blog post jumped from page 4 to the top of page 2 when performing a google search. But there is more good news when considering readers behavior on my site:
I have compared two weeks before and after the change:
| Page views: | + 6,35 % |
| Unique visitors: | + 7,27 % |
| Average Time on Page | + 79,56 % |
| Bounce Rate | - 2,14 % |
People stay on this page for an average of 3 minutes and 21 seconds now, to 1 minute 52 seconds before, this indicates that they probably read it all now.
Considering this is an “old” blog post growing in popularity is a good sign. The changes applied are making a difference, not a huge difference but over time it will make an impact on overall visitors to my blog. I was hoping that it would reduce bounce rate a bit more, and are a bit disappointed in that particular result. But the page has been stumbled and this attracts a lot of visitors that just pass thru. I believe in order to reduce bounce rate further, I probably need to write a follow up, part two kind of blog post.
My conclusion for today
The most interesting findings in this experiment is Average Time on Page that increased by 79,56 % – this means that my visitors is actually reading the article. It underlines the importance of good language. I know that good flawless language is necessary to compete with the big guys, in my defense English is my second language, but if you could afford a proof reader or if you have a great friend that will for free, it is worth it.
Did you miss out?
I am running a project to optimize my other blog. You can read about it here: What is Bounce Rate?
Getting your blog visitors to stay at your blog is an important success factor: Read Another Visitor, Stay a While – Staaaaay Forever for more great blogging advice. I almost forgot: Remember to subscribe to my blog as well
The micromanagement blog post at NMTM have now climed from being out of my top five most read post to number two. I am sure that within weeks it will be the most read post on my blog. I am also listed at google’s first page from time to time, depending on your search settings. It is fun to see how a old blog post suddenly rise to the top.