#that’s a super misleading title but it’s a whole thing. you’ll see

[backhurtyy]

little snippet of something i’m working on 👀

[menatiera]

*Crashes in with prompt ideas* Hi my Mena! Ok, here we go... I'll just suggest a character and a prompt and let you take it from there. Tony, Someone turning up in the nick of time to save the heroes in a car/plane/spacecraft/etc and asking "Need a ride?" Bucky, “We live together. You can’t blame this on anyone else.” Steve, "So violent. You want to mug and tase everybody these days." If you're needing more, just hit me up, honey! *Mwah*

Hey my dearest megmeg! Sorry it took me so long to actually post it while it was written since Easter... :’) But here it is! I went with the first prompt, and I hope you’ll like it!

Title: Showing up to save the day Collaborator: Menatiera Card number: 3109 Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24239134 Squares Filled: Natasha Romanoff Bingo - O5 - Depression Tony Stark Bingo - T1 - I'll sleep when I'm dead. Ship/Main Pairing: Gen Rating: Teen and Up Major Tags: One-Shot, Depressive Thoughts, Mission Gone Wrong, Angst with a Happy Ending Summary: Written for the prompt Someone turning up in the nick of time to save the heroes in a car/plane/spacecraft/etc and asking "Need a ride?" I got from Rebelmeg on Tumblr. :)

Showing up to save the day

Natasha had never been more grateful for Tony’s tendency to adopt children than today.

The mission had been a disaster from start to finish. The Avengers had had to react quickly, and therefore went in based on insufficient information. It was something that would probably leave any other first responder unit in a screaming match with their superiors, while it was the most common and most expected from a group of superheroes, really. And on most days, it was okay. On most days, they were quick on their feet and could handle whatever was thrown at their faces.

But there were days when the given intel wasn’t only insufficient but completely misleading. There were days when it meant going into a situation expecting a handful of ordinary goons, when in reality they went in to be pinned down by a squadron of enhanced, intelligent dinosaurs armed to the teeth under the command of the handful of not-exactly-ordinary and not-exactly-human-anymore goons.

Which was challenging, to say the least, even to superheroes, because being super and trained and hard to kill is one thing, and being this far outnumbered by competent enemies was another.

(rest under the cut)

When the reptiles had successfully managed to separate them from each other, they all kind of started to make their peace with the very likely option of not leaving the scene alive. Or at least not all of them, despite their best efforts. Natasha felt the icy feeling settle in her stomach, the ruthless truth of it run through his veins with cold certitude. She didn’t have more time than to spare a few glances to her teammates, but she had been trained to see the important details even by just that.

She saw how heavily Bucky was bleeding; the dinosaur teeth had gone through tac gear like it was cotton candy. She saw the desperation as he switched from rifle to gun to blades, as he had ran out of ammo or lost them to the enemy. (She dodged sharp fangs and shot through the jaw of the beastie.) She saw Steve, his jaw clenched and teeth gritted, partly because of determination and partly simply to not bit his tongue as he flipped, fought, punched and defended himself with the shield, growls of frustration escaping him as he got farther and farther away from the rest of his team. (A goon came close enough for her to slam her body in. Stomp on his feet. Elbow to his noise; hear the satisfactory crack of bone. Push him away, into the waiting jaw of a dinosaur.) She saw Clint, running out of arrows, refusing to move away from his spot as he defended Wanda, who had been knocked unconscious earlier. (Switch the knife from her right to her left hand and thrust into the chest of a reptile, push push push until she couldn’t further, until the warm blood of the animal coated her hand.) She saw Vision, struggling and immobilized by one of the alien devices the enemy had, his synthetic-vibranium body withstanding the dinosaurs but who knew how long would that last. (Get a moment to breath and spray the enemies in front of her with bullets, without aim, just to keep them at bay while she panted.) She saw Rhodey, out of his armor for some reason she had missed, teamed up with Sam who was forced on the ground too, but at least the pair still had their guns. (A bullet hit her chest, stopped by her gear but she still stumbled back two steps, trying to get her bearings again through the pain. A dinosaur nearly chomped her head off. She danced away, further from the others…)

So it was really looking fucking great for everyone. 

Natasha wasn’t afraid of dying, hadn’t been since she had turned twelve, always accepted it as an unlikely but possible scenario. And to be completely honest, she wasn’t even displeased with this way of dying. Being eaten alive wasn’t ideal for sure, but she was practical enough to know that there were worse ones. Plus, if there were an afterlife, Clint would be able to brag about it for eternity as something pretty unique and, in his terms, badass way to go.

(She was forced on the ground, assaulted from too many directions to be able to stand up, just rolling away and away - sometimes being able to retaliate, but mostly just avoiding, rolling, dodging…)

She was a bit worried about Steve and Bucky. But hey, they’d died a few times already, they should be good for another round. As long as they went out together, because she was pretty sure they’d commit suicide to drag the other back personally anyway if one of them miraculously survived where the other didn’t. 

(Finally she was on her feet and she fired, almost blindly, only paying attention to turn away from her teammates, even though she was going to run out of ammo too soon.)

The rest of the team, well. Natasha could guess, but she was pretty preoccupied with a dinosaur snarling at her face, so she didn’t. They’d figure out afterlife if they even got there.

Which, personally, Natasha doubted, but it was just her belief. Everyone was allowed to have their own delusions. (Even if they were wrong.)

The whole building started to shook around her, and through the roaring of the battle she heard thumbling, thunderous sounds of bricks collapsing, structures shattering, and she looked up, surprised and too damn deep among the enemies to feel hopeful. Even if Thor arrived just in time to save the day, there was never any insurance that all of the team would survive long enough to see him - Natasha herself was bleeding, the cuts from the dinosaur claws slashing deep into her flesh, making her slower, easier to target.

But what she saw when the roof was torn away from above them wasn't the God of Thunder.

What she saw was... a spaceship.

It was bulky, less sleek than the Guardians' ship with which she had experience. It seemed used and old, the way a thirty-years old car would look despite being loved and cared for through the decades. She didn't have time to goggle too much, having plenty enough to focus on without the appearing spaceship. The Avengers were in a bad enough situation, if the newcomer turned out to be hostile, it was all lost anyway, and she couldn't do anything against a spaceship in her condition - she ran out of ammo already, not to mention the exhaustion of the blood loss and the fight.

The spaceship, hovering above them, opened fire.

Dinosaurs and goons fell like they were skittles, the hail of bullets avoiding the Avengers carefully.

The spaceship turned in the air, almost like making a dramatic pirouette, and the head of it tipped down, revealing the pilot.

Natasha had never been more grateful to see an alien.

Nebula was holding a sippy cup in one hand, nibbling at it absent-mindedly as she piloted the ship.

Natasha sliced through the garters of a reptile and grinned up. Nebula parted the cup from her lips long enough to smile back, then continued to nibble on it.

Natasha's smile faltered, partly because a goon got close enough to nearly hit her face with his gunstock, and partly because someone joined Nebula on the cockpit, and of course Tony had to be there.

She was happy to see Tony, always. She wasn't happy to see him out of bed against doctors’ orders. But honestly, what else did she expect.

There was no music, no AC/DC filling the air like the first time Tony had shown up for the very first Avengers mission, joining the fight against Loki. Maybe Tony grew out of some of his antics; maybe he just got older and more tired to waste it without good reason. But he was still dramatic enough to switch on a loudspeaker. "Need a ride, team?" he asked.

The resulting growls, thankfully, were lost to the noise of the spaceship landing. On top of some of the dinosaurs. No one particularly minded that bit.

One by one, the Avengers fought their way to the opening hatch. Natasha helped Clint dragging Wanda, while Sam and Rhodey carried Vision and the supersoldier duo covered their hasty exit with punching or stabbing anything that came close enough to punch or stab it.

They all but collapsed on the floor once the ramp was up and they felt the ship rising to the air.

Natasha heard part of the conversation happening in the cockpit. "These are bad guys by Terran standards, right?" Nebula asked.

"Absolutely," Tony confirmed, voice audibly proud, and also audibly shaky. He probably wasn't as good to go as he tried to convince himself.

"Okay then," Nebula said. 

The next moment, there was an explosion huge enough that it shook the ship in the air, throwing everyone off-balance who tried to be on their feet. Natasha was wiser than that to begin with, still sprawled out on the dirty iron lattice. Every inch of her body hurt. Adrenaline had kept the sensations at bay, but even hormones could do miracles only for so long. She was very grateful to just lay on the floor, happy to be still breathing, and getting acclimatized to the fact that she missed her meeting with death yet again.

Thanks to the amazing team. The team that included Tony Stark, Iron Man, the best defender of planet Earth, and foster dad of many deadly being. Including, but not limited to Nebula.

Half-deaf from the explosion, Natasha wondered if they should make Nebula an Avenger in the eyes of the world, too. She always showed up if Iron Man got involved, anyway - they might as well make it official.

Once the ringing of their ears dissipated, Tony sighed, loud and exasperated.

"Neb, Mean and Angsty Blue Princess, dearest of the aliens, when I say bad guys, I mean you should turn them to the authorities, not to blow them up, remember?"

"Ooops," Nebula said, tone as flat as possible. "I'll keep that in mind next time."

Natasha rolled to her back and couldn't help a smile as he listened to the team roustling and groaning and complaining around her.

Nebula didn't blow up the facility because she forgot the rules of Earth. She did it because the people in there had hurt the Avengers. She had chosen Tony as his family, and with Tony came a bunch of other superheroes, and as much as Nebula tried to keep up appearances, she had grown fond of them. All of them. Natasha knew, because she'd been there once where Nebula was now, too attached to not care but too scared to show it openly. Yet.

She'd come around, Natasha was sure of that.

And until then, here she was, saving them all.

Natasha knew there were a lot to come. They'd have to thank Neb and Tony. They'd have to ask them where did they acquire a spaceship. (Or more like, where the hell had been Tony and Nebula secretly building it, since it was clearly a shared project between the pair.) They'd have to deal with the fallout of this mission gone wrong. They'd have to justify the extreme measure of violence to authorities. They'd have to figure out how did this facility got weaponized dinosaurs, which wouldn't be easy with the evidence blown up to kingdom come. They'd have to sit down with Nebula yet again, pretending they didn't all know why had she done what she'd done. And they'd have to chew another one on Tony for not staying in bed when he had been on the brink of death only a few days ago.

But all of that could wait.

At these moments, she just wanted to sleep, preferably for a whole week, surrounded by her family. 

So she did.

[thisyearingaming]

2011 - This Year in Gaming

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - Nintendo DS, January 11th

A quirky adventure game where you are fucking dead, and you gotta work out who killed you. Ghost Trick is like Ace Attorney at first glance - it looks similar, and is made by effectively the same development team. Give it a shot on iOS.

Dead Space 2 - Multiplatform, January 25th 

Dead Space 2 was the undisputed king of alien horror until Alien: Isolation released. Yeah, you battle massive acid-spitting aliens, but it’s the necromorph babies you’re gonna be shit-scared of. It isn’t quite as unique as it’s predecessor, but it’s definitely much better to play. Bring your brown pants.

The Nintendo 3DS Releases - March 27th

The 3DS was like magic when you first fired the 3D slider all the way up - then it became a gimmick you never used again. Releasing with a few decent launch titles and being able to boast Street Fighter IV as playable, the 3DS arguably didn’t really pick up much steam until a few months after launch. While more powerful than the original DS which was six years old at the time, I can’t remember being particularly interested in it at the time.

Portal 2 - Multiplatform, April 19th 

Valve’s final single player experience until their jump into VR was a bloody good one - very funny and amusingly written with the best Steve Merchant performance since The Ricky Gervais Show, Portal 2′s puzzle solving adventure is rarely a chore to play through, and has thousands of custom maps courtesy of the Steam community.

L.A. Noire - Multiplatform, May 17th

Rockstar’s foray into adventure games has stood the test of time as an enjoyable and often startling journey nto the seedy underbelly of 1947 Los Angeles - as Cole Phelps you’ll threaten a Jewish man with the gas chamber, arrest a paedophile instead of a clearly guilty father, quote Hamlet to a prop skull at the scene of a car crash, destroy thousands of dollars of property, and yell at a child whose mother’s just been murdered. Great fun!

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings - Windows 

CDPR hit it out of the park with a fantastically improved sequel to 2007′s Eurojank diamond in the rough The Witcher, and really introduce Geralt of Rivia to more people for the first time with this game. A branching story that sees Geralt hunting Letho, the killer of King Foltest, and allying either with smelly hippy elven leader Iorveth and his terrorists who don’t appear in the sequel or the very cool but quite racist Vernon Roche and his special forces group, who are supporting characters in the sequel.

Alice: Madness Returns - Multiplatform, June 14th

A surprisingly charming, unsettling dive into the fractured psyche of the Victorian equivalent of an actual goth gf, Alice is a sequel to American McGee’s Alice from 2000. Surreal as fuck and absolutely drowning in atmosphere. Just don’t look at any of the YouTube comments on videos of the soundtrack. Rather bizarre show...

Duke Nukem Forever - Multiplatform, June 14th

Sometimes it’s best NOT to bet on the Duke. I bought this game to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I did neither - DNF is fucking boring, and I blame it ALL on Randy Pitchford’s devotion to ruining things I like. DNF could’ve been brilliant - either embrace your heritage like Doom Eternal would eventually do, or make it into a “last hurrah” kind of thing where Duke realises he’s getting old and can’t kick ass forever. The greatest disappointment of the 2010s so far - but worse would follow with it. The King is dead - hail to the King, baby.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Multiplatform, August 23rd

The piss-tinted prequel to 2000′s excellent conspiracy RPG Deus Ex, Human Revolution is like smashing Robo-Cop into a world where Detroit is not a humanitarian disaster zone. Adam Jensen, the gravelly-voiced biomechanically enhanced security chief of David Sarif, is dragged into a world of American conspiracies involving FEMA death camps, the government enforcing martial law in US cities and massive Chinese conglomerates plotting to control the world. Just like real life! DXHR is my favourite in the series for its design, atmosphere and narrative.

Dead Island - Multiplatform, September 6th

Eh. Wasn’t that good. Notable for having the most misleading fucking trailer since Metal Gear Solid 2, but nowhere near as fulfilling upon release. An open world zombie survival game with a focus on melee weapons more fragile than your granny’s second hip. Oh great, now there’s a dead kid on my page. Thanks, Techland!

Driver: San Francisco - Multiplatform, September 6th

A game you literally can’t buy anymore, DSF was incredible to play when it came out and has only really gotten better with time. It’s still so unique for a driving game that I’m surprised Ubisoft have had the good sense to just leave it and not go pants-on-head retarded with the franchise since. Nick Robinson had to buy Subway gift cards just to purchase this game. 

Batman: Arkham City - Multiplatform, October 18th

Arkham City was so cool at launch and it still is today. A proper Batman epic with twists, turns, and the most addictive combat arena for years. This whole thing is gold from start to finish, except for the Harley Quinn DLC. I can’t even go into detail about it here, but I fucking LOVE this game.

Sonic Generations - Multiplatform, November 1st

Sonic Generations is the best Sonic game since 3 & Knuckles, but has now unfortunately convinced Sega that not only do people despise the Adventure games, they also really want to see Classic Sonic and Green Hill EVERY GODDAMN DAY. Generations is like a proper celebration of Sonic’s history, even including stuff from every reviewer’s favourite punching bag Sonic 2006 - I really like Generations and it has a stellar modding scene on PC.

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception - Sony PlayStation 3, November 1st

The “finale” of the Uncharted series until Naughty Dog decided it wasn’t. Uncharted 3 may not be as tight as Among Thieves, but it’s just as enjoyable. As quipping invincible action hero Nathan Drake, you’ll ruin historical artifacts and “incapacitate” about 4000 guys in your quest to find Iram of the Pillars, chased by Cruella de Ville and her mercenary squad of a million faceless Englishmen. 

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 - Multiplatform, November 8th

God I was so excited for this. World War 3 never looked cooler, and then it came out - and it wasn’t that good. It didn’t feel as epic as MW2, not as well-written as MW, and not as interesting as World at War and Black Ops. Multiplayer was... fine? I think this is the point where most people realised that Call of Duty was basically downhill from here.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Multiplatform, November 11th

See this paragraph? You can read it. Another installment in Bethesda’s cross-franchise “Little Lies” series, Skyrim has been released more times than China’s created a pandemic. But it’s still really good and when you rub it the right way it comes all over your screen like a particularly excited storyteller, ready to point in the direction of adventure.

Super Mario 3D Land - Nintendo 3DS, November 13th

Yeah this was the point I decided I wanted a 3DS. It looked incredible and so fluid, and it really was! Playing this was great fun. That’s really all there is - I can’t be funny about it, nor overly critical. What do you want from me?

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations - Multiplatform, November 15th 

I didn’t like this when it came out - I thought the new graphic style was bad, Constantinople was dull, and the music was too different. Ezio was angrier, older, and the complete lack of any supporting cast from Brotherhood had me thinking this was a game that nobody wanted to work on - but now that I’m older, I can see this for how good it really was. Revelations blends the Ezio and Altair stories together, culminating in a satisfying emotional climax. 

Saints Row: The Third - Multiplatform, November 15

This video speaks for itself.

Minecraft - Windows, November 18th

There’s something beautiful about those early builds of Minecraft. Quiet, unassuming, and riddled with potential for exploration. I could talk for hours about the first time I was thrown into Mojang’s survival experience, about how I still get a bit weepy hearing Wet Hands by C418, about how shit-scared I still am of the mines and caves. Minecraft is immortal, and always will be. 

[feinstone]

punkesweet’s stardew mega-modlist

howdy doody everyboody! i’ve spent way too much time on stardew valley *cough* 200 hours *cough*, and i thought i’d give back to the community by making a modlist for the mods i use. mostly graphical overhauls and small tweaks here and there, and most of these are pretty popular so you’ve probably already heard of them, but hey it’s whatever. the list starts under the cut! engines/pre-reqs most, if not all, these mods require some combination of these engines to run. i know nothing about coding so i can’t give apt descriptors of exactly what these do or why they’re needed, but they are.

Content Patcher

Custom Critters

Json Assets

SMAPI - SMAPI is the modding API for Stardew, necessary for all modding (besides old xnb mods).

PyTK

quality of life mods that don’t super duper mess with the game, but just slight improvements or changes to the original General

BigSilo - Increases the silo capacity for hay storage to around 200k per silo.

CasksAnywhere - Allows casks to be placed and used anywhere (this can sometimes interact weirdly with other mods that add new locations).

Stack Everything - Allows normally unstackable objects (eg. casks) to be stacked, saving on inventory and storage space.

Starblue Valley - Redoes some of the colouring and filters. Blues are bluer, greens are greener, and the whole game looks a lot less yellow and harsh.

game tweaks things that add mechanics or change/expand gameplay Immersion (i guess?)

catGifts - Misleading title, dogs also have the same effect. Pets will occasionally leave you items.

Climates of Ferngill - Expands the weather system, adding custom weather like fog, as well as tweaking the original weather system.

Happy Birthday - Allows the player to set a birthday for themselves, on which npcs will give them gifts and wish them happy birthday.

Lunar Disturbances - Adds an overhead moon and a lunar cycle to the game, with some parts of the cycle affecting gameplay.

Gameplay

Mizu’s Flowers - Adds more flowers, because let’s be real, it’s frankly homophobic that there are only 8 types in the base game.

More Trees - Adds more trees (and by extension more fruits and wines).

Canon Friendly Dialogue Expansion - More dialogue babey! Ever get tired of hearing the same 4 things over and over? Well be tired no more, you’ll now hear 9 things over and over. Or 1500+ I guess, but who’s counting.

Places/Buildings

Oasis Greenhouse - Expands the greenhouse to have an even grid, as well as adding a basement and location to plant trees.

Slime Hutch Winery - Replaces the (let’s be honest, functionally useless) slime hutch with a winery! It’s customisable so you can have a cool looking bar, or work it in conjunction with CasksAnywhere to have a secondary basement-thing.

Spouse Rooms Redesigned - Redesigns the spouse rooms to be a little more aesthetically pleasing and reflect your spouse more (this does interact weirdly if you change the flooring of your house).

aesthetique™ we all know that the most important part of any game is making it look as good as possible, stardew is no exception. most of these are done by elle aka @junimods, who is a goddess at designing cute stuff. Animals

Elle’s New Barn Animals - Redesigns barn animals to look cuter (customisable).

Elle’s New Coop Animals - Redesigns coop animals to look cuter (customisable).

Elle’s Cat Replacements - Redesigns the cat to look cuter (customisable).

Elle’s Dog ReplacementsI - Redesigns the dog to look cuter (customisable).

Elle’s Critter and Butterfly Replacements - Redesigns the little squirrels that run into trees and butterflies that flap around to be cuter.

Eemie’s Bees - Adds bees! Who doesn’t love bees!

Buildings

Elle’s Seasonal Buildings - Redesigns for alllll the farm buildings, including the house, barns, coops, etc.

Items

Fence - Redesigns wooden fences to be cute little rope/dark wood fences.

Fippsie’s Alternative Lamp Posts - Redesigns lamp posts.

Kawaii HatsI - Replaces all the hats with cuter versions/new hats. Who doesn’t love having bows in their hair.

Yellog’s Wood Craftables - Redesigns all craftable objects (i.e. furnaces, chests, cheese makers, beehives, etc.) to fit one nice aesthetic.

General

Ali’s Flower Grass - Replaces grass with a prettier, greener, flowery-er grass. Probably my favourite mod tbh.

Babies Take After Spouse - Retextures your little chiddlers to look more like your spouses offspring than a random child you definitely didn’t kidnap. Also adds more clothes for your toddlers if you’re into that.

Garden Variety UI - Overhauls UI to look more aesthetically appealing. Customisable by choosing from a variety of colours.

cheatsy doodles most of these aren’t quite cheats because i don’t play that way, but they’re like, cheat adjacent.

AutoAnimalDoors - Animal doors automatically open and close at a set time every morning and night.

CJB Cheats Menu - It’s a cheats menu. Allows you to change movement speed, pause time, instantly grow crops, change heart levels, etc. Cheat menu stuff, y’know.

No Crows - No more pesky crows eating your crops.

No Fence Decay - Removes fence decay.

Tree Transplant - Adds the option to move trees the same way one would move buildings, by visiting the carpenter (instead of having to cut them down and replant).

UI Info Suite - Honestly a must have, even if you do everything else vanilla. Adds functions such as being able to see how long a crop has left to grow by hovering over it, whether or not you’ve interacted with an animal, the ability to check the calendar/community centre from your inventory, keep track of whether you’ve given an npc gifts that week, track npc’s on the map, etc. The best mod everrrrrrr.

and that’s that folks! i also have a handful of harvey dialogue expansions because he is and forever will be the best, but i decided to omit them in order to give this list a more widely applicable experience.

[closetgremlin]

Ok, some more Graceling thoughts! Here we go

Kat acknowledges that her anger is related to King Randa, that’s good. Page 122-123, she says to Po “If I don’t do what [Randa] says, he’ll become angry. When he becomes angry, I’ll become angry. And then I’ll want to kill him.” So… this acknowledgment is good! At least she’s voiced that now, I think that that is a good thing. Actually hang on - Po corrects her, as a matter of fact. He says she’s afraid of her own anger; She stopped then and looked at him, because that seemed right to her. She was afraid of her own anger. Po goes on to tell her that “Randa isn’t even worth your anger,” and that “[m]uch of his power comes from you.” Then there’s this part:

She was afraid of her own anger: She repeated it in her mind. She was afraid of what she would do to the king—and with good reason. Look at Po, his jaw red and beginning to swell. She’s learned to control her skill, but she hadn’t learned to control her anger. And that meant she still didn’t control her Grace, (pg 123).

I just… I really like this scene, is all. I like this acknowledgement of her anger, her powers, her thoughts and feelings towards and about Randa. I think it’s good for her, and tbh it may be partly catharsis for me. Idk.

Following that, at the bottom of page 123 Kat mentions Po’s family - specifically, how she thought his aunt had a strange way of dealing with grief (she’s stopped eating, locked herself and her children in her rooms, only allowing a servant for meals which they may or may not eat…). I just think it’s really interesting how Po himself didn’t know about that (and I think Po himself is curious as well!!). (I wonder why this causes Po to think about telling her about his Grace?).

Re: Kat is aspec headcanon. This is nitpick-y and definitely projection, but at the beginning of chapter 13 here:

Raffin had told her she wasn’t perceptive. Po was perceptive. And talkative. Perhaps that was why they got along so well. She didn’t have to explain herself to Po, and he explained himself to her without her having to ask. She’s never known a person with whom she could communicate so freely—so unused was she to the phenomenon of friendship. (Pg. 126)

First off, SAME here about not being perceptive. I‘m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this in another commentating thread, but when one of my close friends and I first met I didn’t know that they had a crush on me till like… idk, a few months of knowing each other, and I only knew because they told me themself, while everyone around us knew about it basically (friend is very affectionate towards their crushes). So like! Not very perceptive? Mood, same here. But also, the way I figure it - if it’s not something you’re looking for (if you’re not looking for romantic stuff), why would you see it (why would you notice when others have romantic stuff for you)? …You know? And just… idk, the last part about how she’s so unused to “the phenomenon of friendship,” I just… that makes me sad. It also makes me think she’s demiromantic? (Or like, it increases that thought/headcannon, seeing as I’ve mentioned it before…). Because like - to my understanding, demiromantic means that one develops a romantic attraction only after a deep bond is formed (although maybe even that is misleading…? Is what I’ve sort of heard… feel free to correct me of course). With Giddon, Kat was disgusted when she found out that he was in love with her (and also thinks he’s a fool for it, as if that’s a thing he could control, which to my understanding you can’t really help it when you develop a crush on somebody, but also I’m aroace so as far as I know who’s to say). With Po… well, we’re roughly a hundred and a quarter pages in, there’s obviously no mention of Love from either Kat herself or any whiff from Po (…that I’ve seen, at least, but I’m not very reliable), but at the very least I do think that this… deep bond is forming. (I feel like I remember the book ending with them not officially in a relationship, as in I think they tried it then stopped, but I guess we’ll see).

Oh, re: Kat is aspec headcannon. “Giddon’s hope [to marry Katsa] bewildered her. She couldn’t fathom his foolishness, to fall in love with her, and she still didn’t entirely believe it to be true” page 130. She literally thinks he’s a fool for falling in love with her and genuinely can’t understand it - she thinks it’s a joke.! I am now revising my headcanon to say she’s grayromantic; the label means a lot of things to a lot of people, but I sort of look at it like it’s the “gray area” between 0% attraction (aromantic) and 100% attraction (alloromantic). (It is other things, too, of course, but this is my simplified understanding/explanation for the term😋). I think she’s grayromantic because romantic attraction as a whole seems very foreign to her (see above quote) and she doesn’t understand it; when she finally feels that attraction with Po (I’m not there yet, but I remember it. A little) it’s rather strong (probably surprising? Ok I don’t really remember but that’s fINE-). …ok I lost my train of thought but I think this makes sense. Yeah? Ok

Re: Giddon’s in love with Kat.

“…at least I don’t have a holding that depends on me, as do you, Giddon. I don’t have a wife, as you do, Oll.”

Giddon’s face went dark. He opened his mouth to speak, but Katsa cut through his words. (Page 135)

Personally, I think he’s offended by this because he’s in love with her and wants to marry her. Like - she points out that she isn’t married like Oll is, but G is like her in that they both aren’t married, and he wants to marry her… so idk, I think he’s just slightly offended by this line. Since we’re on this page…

Katsa what the FUCK. (Reference to my earlier post, here, which says basically the same thing). Page 135, same as above -

“I’ll kill the king,” she said. “I’ll kill the king, unless you both agree not to support me. This is my rebellion and mine alone, and if you don’t agree, I sweat to you on my Grace I will murder the king.”

Katsa what the F U C K. Holy fucking shit!! I’ve been going buck wild since I’ve read this, Katsa what the ever helling shit!!!!! She didn’t know if she would do it. But she knew she seemed wild enough for them to believe she would. Kat holy shit!! That’s… kinda all I have to say on the matter! ‘Cause like wow, Kat!

G proposes to Kat - his first mistake is on page 139, when he says “You should let me protect you.” You fucker. You fool. That’s the literal worst thing you can say to someone as independent as she is, never mind the fact that she could stomp you like a leaf. Actually, she phrases what I mean better than I do: A man who thought himself her protector—her protector when she could outduel him if she used a toothpick to his sword (page 140). And then he asks her if she’d “refuse a suitable proposal?”, like! Sir! Do you know her at all!! Of course she’d turn down a “suitable proposal,” she doesn’t! Wanna get married! To anybody! Idk if she’s like, expressed this in court or to court at all or whatever, but like I’m pretty sure I remember her saying that she’s mentioned it to Randa before? (Or at least King can probably guess at that…?). And then!! And then!! Third mistake! : “…You’ll want babies. I’m certain of it.” She wants to hit him for this, and I do not blame her!! (Actually, the exact reaction is wayyy more funny: She hadn’t expected to have such an immediate opportunity to practice containing her temper. For he deserved thumping, to knock his certainty out of his head and onto the ground where it belonged, page 140). Granted, I’m amazed, impressed, and super proud of her for how she handles this situation - she breathes to calm herself down, remains level-headed while wanting to knock the certainty out of him, sticks with exactly what Raff suggested she stick with (the whole “it’s not you, it’s me” shtick). I’m really proud of her for that, I don’t think I could do that myself (I’d probably get overwhelmed and shut down tbh). Fourth mistake: he calls her a lady killer, the name that’s been used for her several times by other parties. Idk how she feels about the title, but it really bothers me that he used that for her here. He’s trying to hurt her, I think, in the same/similar way she’s currently hurting him, so he calls her what others call her, what others call her who are outside of her small group of friends and familiar people (…aside from King, I guess. Randa, who’s a trigger for her! So maybe G’s trying to anger/trigger her…? Anyways, moving away from the PTSD headcannon now…). Also, how shallow of him to assume that she’s more interested in Po because he’s a prince while G’s simply a lord (page 141) - how shallow to assume that she’s interested in him at all, in my opinion, because she isn’t (in that way, at this point, yet). As a side note, I kinda think it’s funny that G thinks that Po will leave if G tells him exactly what he thinks about him, because like - not that G knows this, but Po already knows!! It’s the… idk, the cosmic irony of it all. Is that the phrasing? I think it’s ironic… right? That’s the word? Because Po actually knows this already but G doesn’t think he does. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I misremembered Po’s Grace! (Well of course I did, I read this like 6 years ago…). It’s not mind reading exactly, it’s - “I sense people. [...] I sense people when they’re near me, thinking and feeling and moving around, their bodies, their physical energy. It is only—“ He swallowed. “It is only when they’re thinking about me that I can also sense their thoughts.” […] I can’t sit and listen in to whatever thoughts I want. I don’t know what you think of Raffin, or what Raffin thinks of Bann, or whether Oll enjoys his dinner. You can be behind the door running in circles and thinking about how much you hate Randa, and all I’ll know is that you’re running in circles—until your thoughts turn to me. Only then do I know what you’re feeling.” (Page 145). Tbh? This is super cool, like as a magic thing and I’m very excited about this concept. Also… I guess I still don’t like… I still don’t quite understand why she doesn’t like mind readers, specifically. I understand the fact that she’s upset about him lying to her about his Grace, about him “being a mind reader,” but… I don’t get it. Granted, I don’t usually understand [plot lines/subplots/tensions/whatever] where people get so twisted up over another person lying, so this is more of a me-thing than a book-thing. I’ve just never understood why people get so upset over lying, sometimes.

Ok this is really long. Guess I had a lot to say! I’ve been working on this for basically 2 hours now, give or take. Nice. Anyways, thanks for reading

[arrowdaily]

As revealed at the close of the (terrific) midseason finale, Star City’s infamous vigilante is now working unmasked as a consultant for the SCPD. That will stir conflicts, showrunner Beth Schwartz says in the Q&A below, as well as set Oliver’s wife Felicity on a mission.

Schwartz also fielded our burning questions about the (misleading?) flashforwards, Robert Queen’s “return,” haunted Laurel and more.

TVLine: Get me excited about “Oliver Queen, SCPD-sanctioned fighter of crime.” Beth Schwartz: Having our entire series based off the vigilantes not being in partnership with the SCPD, we found it super exciting in the writers room to make this happen. But it’s not going to be without conflict. And the rest of the team is going to have to find their way as well, to figure out how this is all going to work.

And what will determine whether he suits up versus rocks a V-neck and blazer? BS: He will suit up with the police—but he will also wear a V-neck and blazer. [Laughs] He will do both.

Will Oliver get to deal with any villains of the week, or will be be frying bigger fish? BS: A combination. Definitely some villains of the week.

The “Elseworlds” crossover seemed to do some damage control with regards to Oliver and Felicity. Would you say they’re back to 100 percent? 90 percent? 80…? BS: I would say 100 percent.

But will we still see Felicity on edge, getting darker? BS: She definitely has a lot going on in the second half—specifically figuring out what she’s going to do now that Oliver’s back, and how she’s going to fit into his new role working for the SCPD, while also doing her own thing. She’s going to start getting back to creating tech and doing things to help the world.

Because there is a dilapidated Smoak Tech in the future… BS: Yes, yes. We’re going to see the origin story of that.

I find it a little convenient that the half-sister Oliver doesn’t know he has is a trained vigilante, just like him—if only because he was only outed a few months ago. Will that make more sense once we get into her backstory? BS: It will. We’re going to find out a lot more about her in episode 10—where she came from, who her mother is, why Robert [Queen] kept her a secret, what her mission is… We’ll keep unraveling that as the season goes on.

Are you able to do that without Jamey Sheridan, or will he come back for flashbacks as Robert? BS: Well… we have him coming back, but not necessarily on-camera. There will be a fun surprise with him in episode 10.

But it’s definitely new material that Jamey did, not recycled stuff? BS: Yes, yes.

I have to say, you’ve got me puzzling over the flashforwards; I even wrote a whole think piece about them. Is this the future or a future? BS: This is the future as we know it, but we haven’t even scratched the surface of it yet. We’re going to be revealing what’s behind the wall at The Glades, and in episode 10 we’re going to see out first glimpse of how the other, better half are living. We’re actually going to have an all-future episode, episode 16, which will answer all the questions, including the backstory of Blackstar (Shadowhunters’ Katherine McNamara), how she came to be in this group… There are more surprises ahead as we fill in the blanks about what has been going on. That episode is titled “Star City 2040.”

Speaking of Blackstar, should we read anything into the fact that Roy wasn’t present when we first met her? I was wondering if it’s because he would recognize her. BS: Oh, no—he doesn’t know her.

Really? BS: Yep. He doesn’t. [But speaking of Roy] we’re definitely going to answer why we found him banished on Lian Yu. We’ll get to know more about that.

The “Ghost Initiative” that Diggle and Lyla put together in episode 11, comprised of Diaz, China White (Kelly Hu), Cupid (Amy Gumenick) and Slade’s son (Liam Hall)—is this your workaround to not being able to use the Suicide Squad? BS: It’s a new group but with the same kind of MO as the Suicide Squad. Diaz is going to be our leader of that, which is really fun. We’re going to get to see a lot of that in episode 11, which is David Ramsey’s directorial debut. He did such an amazing job; I just had the mix this week and it’s so much fun seeing China White back, and Cupid, and Kane Wolfman, with Diaz leading the charge. It’s a really, really cool episode.

Is whatever Diggle and Lyla are up to with the Dante painting going to dovetail with the bigger picture? BS: It will, yep. It will all come to a head. You’ll see, we’ve been playing the long game with that one.

The synopsis for episode 11 also says, “Oliver and Laurel are haunted by the past.” What more can you say about that? BS: We are going to find out more about Laurel’s backstory on Earth-2, which is really cool. And Oliver is sort of going to be haunted by the consequences of him being outed. The episode looks at the consequences of him being unmasked and everyone knowing who he is.

What else is coming up for Laurel in the second half of the season? BS: Well, we are doing a Birds of Prey-inspired episode, that she will be involved with. And we’ll get to see what happens in her overall arc, in her redemption story—whether she is really redeemed as Black Siren and did she really turn over a new leaf, or is she still the same evil Black Siren that we saw last season.

Birds of Prey is, of course, a group of people. I suppose you’re leaving us to guess who the other team members might be…? BS: Yep.

I asked The Flash‘s Todd Helbing a similar question: Is there anything that Arrow needs to do with the remainder of its season in service of next fall’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover? BS: It’s possible. It’s possible…

[michaelandy101-blog]

13 Reasons Your Website Can Have a High Bounce Rate

New Post has been published on http://tiptopreview.com/13-reasons-your-website-can-have-a-high-bounce-rate/

13 Reasons Your Website Can Have a High Bounce Rate

It’s a question asked on Reddit and Twitter every day.

It makes the shoulders of online marketers tense up and makes analysts frown with concern.

You look at your analytics, eyes wide, and find yourself asking; “Why do I have such a high bounce rate?”

What Is a Bounce Rate?

As a refresher, Google refers to a “bounce” as “a single-page session on your site.”

Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors that leave your website (or “bounce” back to the search results or referring website) after viewing only one page on your site.

This can even happen when a user idles on a page for more than 30 minutes.

So what is a high bounce rate, and why is it bad?

Well “high bounce rate” is a relative term, which depends on what your company’s goals are, and what kind of site you have.

Low bounce rates – or too low bounce rates – can be problems too.

Most websites will see bounce rates between 26% to 70%, according to a RocketFuel study.

Based on the data they gathered, they provided a bounce rate grading system of sorts:

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25% or lower: Something is probably broken

26-40%: Excellent

41-55%: Average

56-70%: Higher than normal, but could make sense depending on the website

70% or higher: Bad and/or something is probably broken

The overall bounce rate for your site will live in the Audience Overview tab of Google Analytics.

You can find your bounce rate for individual channels and pages in the behavior column of most views in Google Analytics.

What follows are 13 common reasons your website can have a high bounce rate and how to fix these issues.

1. Slow-to-Load Page

Google has a renewed focus on site speed, especially as a part of the Core Web Vitals initiative.

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A slow-to-load page can be a huge problem for bounce rate.

Site speed is part of Google’s ranking algorithm.

Google wants to promote content that provides a positive experience for users, and they recognize that a slow site can provide a poor experience.

Users want the facts fast – this is part of the reason Google has put so much work into featured snippets.

If your page takes longer than a few seconds to load, your visitors may get fed up and leave.

Fixing site speed is a lifelong journey for most SEO and marketing pros.

But the upside is that with each incremental fix, you should see an incremental boost in speed.

Review your page speed (overall and for individual pages) using tools like:

Google PageSpeed Insights.

The Google Search Console PageSpeed reports.

Lighthouse reports.

Pingdom.

GTmetrix.

They’ll offer you recommendations specific to your site, such as compressing your images, reducing third-party scripts, and leveraging browser caching.

2. Self-Sufficient Content

Sometimes your content is efficient enough people can quickly get what they need and bounce!

This can be a wonderful thing.

Perhaps you’ve achieved the content marketer’s dream and created awesome content that wholly consumed them for a handful of minutes in their lives.

Or perhaps you have a landing page that only requires the user to complete a short lead form.

To determine whether bounce rate is nothing to worry about, you’ll want to look at the Time Spent on Page and Average Session Duration metrics in Google Analytics.

You can also conduct user experience testing and A/B testing to see if the high bounce rate is a problem.

If the user is spending a couple of minutes or more on the page, that sends a positive signal to Google that they found your page highly relevant to their search query.

If you want to rank for that particular search query, that kind of user intent is gold.

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If the user is spending less than a minute on the page (which may be the case of a properly optimized landing page with a quick-hit CTA form), consider enticing the reader to read some of your related blog posts after filling out the form.

3. Disproportional Contribution by a Few Pages

If we expand on the example from the previous section, you may have a few pages on your site that are contributing disproportionally to the overall bounce rate for your site.

Google is savvy at recognizing the difference between these.

If your single CTA landing pages reasonably satisfy user intent and cause them to bounce quickly after taking an action, but your longer-form content pages have a lower bounce rate, you’re probably good to go.

However, you will want to dig in and confirm that this is the case or discover if some of these pages with a higher bounce rate shouldn’t be causing users to leave en masse.

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Open up Google Analytics, go to Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages, and sort by Bounce Rate.

Consider adding an advanced filter to remove pages that might skew the results.

For example, it’s not necessarily helpful to agonize over the one Twitter share with five visits that have all your social UTM parameters tacked onto the end of the URL.

My rule of thumb is to determine a minimum threshold of volume that is significant for the page.

Choose what makes sense for your site, whether it’s 100 visits or 1,000 visits, then click on Advanced and filter for Sessions greater than that.

4. Misleading Title Tag and/or Meta Description

Ask yourself: Is the content of your page accurately summarized by your title tag and meta description?

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If not, visitors may enter your site thinking your content is about one thing, only to find that it isn’t, and then bounce back to whence they came.

Whether it was an innocent mistake or you were trying to game the system by optimizing for keyword clickbait (shame on you!), this is, fortunately, simple enough to fix.

Either review the content of your page and adjust the title tag and meta description accordingly or rewrite the content to address the search queries you want to attract visitors for.

You can also check what kind of meta description Google has generated for your page for common searches – Google can change your meta description, and if they make it worse, you can take steps to remedy that.

5. Blank Page or Technical Error

If your bounce rate is exceptionally high and you see that people are spending less than a few seconds on the page, it’s likely your page is blank, returning a 404, or otherwise not loading properly.

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Take a look at the page from your audience’s most popular browser and device configurations (e.g., Safari on desktop and mobile, Chrome on mobile, etc.) to replicate their experience.

You can also check in Search Console under Coverage to discover the issue from Google’s perspective.

Correct the issue yourself or talk to someone who can – an issue like this can cause Google to drop your page from the search results in a hurry.

6. Bad Link from Another Website

You could be doing everything perfect on your end to achieve a normal or low bounce rate from organic search results, and still have a high bounce rate from your referral traffic.

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The referring site could be sending you unqualified visitors or the anchor text and context for the link could be misleading.

Sometimes this is a result of sloppy copywriting.

The writer or publisher linked to your site in the wrong part of the copy or didn’t mean to link to your site at all.

Reach out to the author of the article, then the editor or webmaster if the author can’t update the article post-publish.

Politely ask them to remove the link to your site – or update the context, whichever makes sense.

(Tip: You can easily find their contact information with this guide.)

Unfortunately, the referring website may be trying to sabotage you with some negative SEO tactics, out of spite, or just for fun.

For example, they may have linked to your Guide to Adopting a Puppy with the anchor text of FREE GET RICH QUICK SCHEME.

You should still reach out and politely ask them to remove the link, but if needed, you’ll want to update your disavow file in Search Console.

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Disavowing the link won’t reduce your bounce rate, but it will tell Google not to take that site’s link into account when it comes to determining the quality and relevance of your site.

7. Affiliate Landing Page or Single-Page Site

If you’re an affiliate, the whole point of your page may be to deliberately send people away from your website to the merchant’s site.

In these instances, you’re doing the job right if the page has a higher bounce rate.

A similar scenario would be if you have a single-page website, such as a landing page for your ebook or a simple portfolio site.

It’s common for sites like these to have a very high bounce rate since there’s nowhere else to go.

Remember that Google can usually tell when a website is doing a good job satisfying user intent even if the user’s query is answered super quickly (sites like WhatIsMyScreenResolution.com come to mind).

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If you’re interested, you can adjust your bounce rate so it makes more sense for the goals of your website.

For Single Page Apps, or SPAs, you can adjust your analytics settings to see different parts of a page as a different page, adjusting the Bounce Rate to better reflect user experience.

8. Low-Quality or Under Optimized Content

Visitors may be bouncing from your website because your content is just plain bad.

Take a long, hard look at your page and have your most judgmental and honest colleague or friend review it.

(Ideally, this person either has a background in content marketing or copywriting, or they fall into your target audience).

One possibility is that your content is great, but you just haven’t optimized it for online reading – or for the audience that you’re targeting.

Are you writing in simple sentences (think high school students versus PhDs)?

Is it easily scannable with lots of header tags?

Does it cleanly answer questions?

Have you included images to break up the copy and make it easy on the eyes?

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Writing for the web is different than writing for offline publications.

Brush up your online copywriting skills to increase the time people spend reading your content.

The other possibility is that your content is poorly written overall or simply isn’t something your audience cares about.

Consider hiring a freelance copywriter or content strategist who can help you revamp your ideas into powerful content that converts.

9. Bad or Obnoxious UX

Are you bombarding people with ads, pop-up surveys, and email subscribe buttons?

CTA-heavy features like these may be irresistible to the marketing and sales team, but using too many of them can make a visitor run for the hills.

Google’s Core Web Vitals are all about user experience – they’re ranking factors, and effect user happiness too.

Is your site confusing to navigate?

Perhaps your visitors are looking to explore more, but your blog is missing a search box or the menu items are difficult to click on a smartphone.

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As online marketers, we know our websites in and out.

It’s easy to forget that what seems intuitive to us is anything but to our audience.

Make sure you’re avoiding these common design mistakes, and have a web or UX designer review the site and let you know if anything pops out to them as problematic.

10. The Page Isn’t Mobile-Friendly

While we know it’s important to have a mobile-friendly website, the practice isn’t always followed in the real world.

Google’s index is switching to mobile-only next year.

But even as recently as 2018, one study found that nearly a quarter of the top websites were not mobile-friendly.

Websites that haven’t been optimized for mobile don’t look good on mobile devices – and they don’t load too fast, either.

That’s a recipe for a high bounce rate.

Even if your website site was implemented using responsive design principles, it’s still possible that the live page doesn’t read as mobile-friendly to the user.

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Sometimes, when a page gets squeezed into a mobile format, it causes some of the key information to move below-the-fold.

Now, instead of seeing a headline that matches what they saw in search, mobile users only see your site’s navigation menu.

Assuming the page doesn’t offer what they need, they bounce back to Google.

If you see a page with a high bounce rate and no glaring issues immediately jump out to you, test it on your mobile phone.

You can identify non-mobile-friendly pages at-scale using Google’s free Test My Site tool.

You can also check for mobile issues in the Search Console and Lighthouse.

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This can work in reverse too – make sure your site is easy to read and navigate in desktop, tablet, and mobile formats, and with accessibility devices.

11. Wonky Google Analytics Setup

It’s possible that you haven’t properly implemented Google Analytics and added the tracking codes to all the pages on your site.

Google explains how to fix that here.

12. Content Depth

Google can give people quick answers through featured snippets and knowledge panels; you can give people the deep, interesting, interconnected content that’s a step beyond that.

Make sure your content compels people to click on further.

Provide interesting, relevant internal links, and give them a reason to stay.

And for the crowd that wants the quick answer, give them a TL;DR summary at the top.

13. Asking for Too Much

Don’t ask someone for their credit card number, social security, grandmother’s pension, and children’s names right off the bat – your user doesn’t trust you yet.

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People are ready to be suspicious considering how many scam websites are out there.

Being presented with a big pop up asking for info will cause a lot of people to leave immediately.

The job of a webmaster or content creator is to build up trust with the user – and doing so will both increase consumer satisfaction and decrease your bounce rate.

If it makes users happy, Google likes it.

Don’t Panic

A high bounce rate doesn’t mean the end of the world.

Some well designed, beautiful webpages have high bounce rates.

Bounce rates can be a measure of how well your site is performing but if you don’t tackle them with nuance, they can become a vanity metric.

Don’t present bounce rates without context.

Sometimes you want a medium to high bounce rate.

And don’t try and “fix” bounce rates that aren’t actually a problem by slowing down users on the page, or preventing them from going back from your site.

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That makes a more frustrated user, and they won’t return to your content again.

Even if the number superficially goes down, you will have earned a lot worse than a “bounce.”

5 Pro Tips for Reducing Your Bounce Rate

Regardless of the reason behind your high bounce rate, here’s a summary of best practices you can implement to bring it down.

1. Make Sure Your Content Lives Up to the Hype

Your title tag and meta description effectively act as your website’s virtual billboard in Google.

Whatever you’re advertising in the SERPs, your content needs to match.

Don’t call your page an ultimate guide if it’s a short post with three tips.

Don’t claim to be the “best” vacuum if your user reviews show a 3-star rating.

You get the idea.

Also, make your content readable:

Break up your text with lots of white space.

Add supporting images.

Use short sentences.

Spellcheck is your friend.

Use good, clean design

Don’t bombard with too many ads

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2. Keep Critical Elements Above the Fold

Sometimes, your content matches what you advertise in your title tag and meta description; visitors just can’t tell at first glance.

When people arrive on a website, they make an immediate first impression.

You want that first impression to validate whatever they thought they were going to see when they arrived.

A prominent H1 should match the title they read on Google.

If it’s an ecommerce site, a photo should match the description.

Give a good first impression

Make sure banners don’t push your content too far down.

Make sure what the user is searching for is on the page when it loads.

3. Speed Up Your Site

When it comes to SEO, faster is always better.

Keeping up with site speed is a task that should remain firmly stuck to the top of your SEO to-do list.

There will always be new ways to compress, optimize, and otherwise accelerate load time.

Implement AMP.

Compress all images before loading them to your site, and only use the maximum display size necessary.

Review and remove any external or load-heavy scripts, stylesheets, and plugins. If there are any you don’t need, remove them. For the ones you do need, see if there’s a faster option.

Tackle the basics: Use a CDN, minify JavaScript and CSS, and set up browser caching.

Check Lighthouse for more suggestions

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4. Minimize Non-Essential Elements

Don’t bombard your visitors with pop-up ads, in-line promotions, and other content they don’t care about.

Visual overwhelm can cause visitors to bounce.

What CTA is the most important for the page?

Compellingly highlight that.

For everything else, delegate it to your sidebar or footer.

Edit, edit, edit!

5. Help People Get Where They Want to Be Faster

Want to encourage people to browse more of your site?

Make it easy for them.

Leverage on-site search with predictive search, helpful filters, and an optimized “no results found” page.

Rework your navigation menu and A/B test how complex vs. simple drop-down menus affect your bounce rate.

Include a Table of Contents in your long-form articles with anchor links taking people straight to the section they want to read.

Summary

Hopefully, this article helped you diagnose what’s causing your high bounce rate, and you have a good idea of how to fix it.

Make your site useful, user-focused, and fast – good sites attract good users.

More Resources:

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Image Credits

All screenshots taken by author, November 2020

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[sunshine-captain]

do you have any good star trek novel recommendations? (tos please!!)

Yes! I do! I’ve been meaning to make a post about this for…so long, whoops, but I’ll answer this ask instead! (might still make the post someday, idk tbh. I probably should though because since I have so many Trek books I haven’t read yet, I might like more enough to rec them, haha.) Okay, anyway… (By TOS I assume you mean the original Enterprise crew, I hope it’s okay that not all of these actually take place during TOS, aka the five year mission.)

Sarek by A. C. Crispin You might have seen me mention this one the other day on my blog; I really love it. It takes place post TUC, Amanda is dying and Sarek is uncovering a plot that’s way bigger than anyone realizes at first… Also there’s some stuff about Jim’s nephew Peter (from the episode with the farting flying pancake aliens? lol.) and yeah, it’s a great read. All the parts with Sarek and Amanda are lovely and sad and the plot is interesting and it’s just all around enjoyable.Definitely recommend.

Collision Course by William Shatner This is the other one I mentioned on my blog already, and this one is probably my favorite Trek novel. Spock is nineteen and Jim is seventeen when they first meet, and they’re both too smart for their own good and get into trouble and…well, all the things you expect from Jim and Spock. It was originally supposed to be the first in a series, but for various reasons, there probably won’t be any more (CRIES) but this one is so good. And it doesn’t end on a cliffhanger so it’s okay. I especially enjoyed tbh how Bill appreciates what an effect Tarsus would have had on Jim (this is only three years later, after all) and it’s still very visible on lil’ Jim. Not a spoiler, bc a reference is made to Tarsus on…literally the very first page. Lol. Anyway, this one is really fun and sometimes sad (bc Tarsus) and just really great! Also, at least one of the plot twists genuinely surprised me, which is rare… I normally see them coming a mile off in Trek novels. ;) (Which doesn’t usually take away from my enjoyment, tbh!) But I really appreciate when they can surprise me.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (novelization) by Gene Roddenberry You knew this was coming. This is an absolute must read if you’re a Spirk fan, tbh. I’m not all the way through with it so far, about halfway done, but I can tell you it’s a much better way of telling the story of TMP than TMP. Lol. The movie has this simple feeling and Jim rushing to Spock on the bridge and saying his name like a prayer and other things, but it also has all those dreadful special effect sequences. And the novel has its own gay to offer. I don’t necessarily agree with the way Gene wrote Jim (in fact, it’s been forever since I picked it up but I distinctly remember being bothered by it), but…yeah, at least borrow a copy from someone and witness the gay parts for yourself, haha.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (novelization) by Vonda McIntyre I’m going to go ahead and say right now that if you’re going to read the novelizations, go for the ones by Ms. (Mrs? idk) McIntyre. She wrote 2, 3, and 4. I haven’t read 3 yet, but I have read 2 and 4 and I like that she actually adds in scenes and stuff that weren’t in the movies. It makes me feel like I’m actually getting something additional for my time even though I’m reading a novelization of a movie I’ve already seen. I like this one, because there was quite a bit that wasn’t in the movie (I have a hunch the extra scenes, at least some of them, might be based on the script? because the scene with Sulu’s great….something or other grandfather as a child meeting Sulu is in the book, and I know they tried to put that in the movie but never managed to. anyway.) But yeah, there’s actual stuff in there that’s not in the movie! that’s the way it should be. Also…she ships Saavik/David pretty clearly. :P Like I said, haven’t read TSS novel yet, but I know she was working it into 2, and it’s mentioned in 4 as a thing. Anyway…good stuff! This is the one where the whole “Vulcans get drunk on chocolate” thing comes from btw :))) (Avoid the novelizations by JM Dillard! Avoid!!! I’ve read them and they’re not good.) (Oh and pretty much everything I’ve read by Vonda McIntyre I’ve enjoyed, she’s a good Trek writer.)

Dwellers In The Crucible by Margaret Wander Bonnano Margaret Bonnano is another writer I just generally recommend bc I like all the stuff by her that I’ve read, too. Anyway… okay so let me say that this book’s main characters are not Jim and Spock. I know, I know. But wait!! It’s so worth a read!! Jim and Spock are in it, not much, but when they are they’re literally so married and explicitly confirmed to be t’hy’la… :)) it’s great. okay anyway. The main characters are a human named Cleante and a Vulcan named T’Shael. They are ladies. THEY ARE GAY AF. OKAY. THAT ALONE MAKES IT WORTH A READ. it’s so glorious.I mean the book only says they’re friends but…in the same way Jim and Spock are friends in canon. they’re super freaking gay. and also there are like a thousand incredibly obvious parallels between our human and vulcan lady and Jim and Spock. it’s fun. also Sulu goes undercover as a Romulan. :D yeah, just…read it. it’s great. (it made me angry at one point. I’m still angry. but I recommend it.)

Ishmael by Barbara Hambly This one was, for me at least, just a genuinely good read. I really enjoyed the plot. So…Spock goes back in time to 1867, not willingly I don’t think. And he gets amnesia. So right there are two tropes I ADORE (time travel and amnesia, I don’t care, I LOVE THEM.) He lands in North America, in Seattle if I remember correctly. And that’s the plot pretty much. Haha…okay, there’s a Klingon plot, the Enterprise crew searching for Spock, Spock trying to adapt and hide he’s an alien while bonding with the members of the community he lands in. Also Jim and Spock’s reunion is a bit gay. (Warning for spoilers if you click that? it’s pictures of when they find him near the end, so. Yeah.) I just really enjoyed the book in itself, the plot and everything. Fun!

Enterprise: The First Adventure by Vonda McIntyre In light of the tv series called Enterprise, the title of this one might be a little confusing… But it’s most definitely TOS and has nothing to do with Enterprise, haha. The premise is that it’s the first voyage of the Enterprise with Jim as the captain. And the mission is…to transport a theater troupe. It’s ridiculous and so silly, I know, but it’s really fun. There’s a winged horse, a really un-Vulcan Vulcan (I think he’s Spock’s cousin? I don’t really remember tbh), Spock heckling the theater troop, Uhura being a good friend to Janice…that’s all I remember off the top of my head, but I remember really enjoying it when I read it! 

Unspoken Truth by Margaret Wander Bonanno Remember what I said about those two writers? Lol. Okay so this is a Saavik-centric book. I really love Saavik, okay? So, as you might know, Saavik is half Vulcan, half Romulan. Well in this book (actually, in a bunch of books, by at least three different writers, it seems to be her accepted backstory in the novels) she was the result of a terrible experiment by Romulans, and when it didn’t work out, she and a bunch of other children were abandoned on a planet called Hellguard, and…some really horrible things happen. Anyway, Spock saves her, mentors her, and Amanda and Sarek basically adopt her (literally, she calls them mother and father, IT’S MY FAVE), well anyway, years later, either after or during TVH, she learns things are happening to the survivors of Hellguard…and the story goes from there. This was really good! Intense tbh. I loved it, but then, I love Saavik. If you don’t like her… But if you do, you’ll enjoy this one!!!!

Doctor’s Orders by Diane Duane Diane Duane is another must read author. All her books are excellent. In all honestly, I don’t remember too much about the plot of this one, but I know I liked it! Dr. McCoy is like “you can’t make me take command on the bridge” and Jim is like “uh actually I CAN” so he does and of course on McCoy’s very first day watching over the bridge Jim goes AWOL and shit starts going down. Poor Bones. Also, there’s some crazy aliens in this one, but they’re interesting!

The Vulcan Academy Murders by Jean Lorrah This one has such misleading cover art, lmaooo. At least, the version I have. There might be others… Anyway. Patients at a hospital on Vulcan keep dying and stuff, and then Amanda is in trouble. Lots of Sarek and Spock and Jim and Bones interaction. It’s a good one. (It’s been soo long since I read this one, too, sorry. But again, I know I enjoyed it!)

Uhura’s Song by Janet Hagan I love the alien species in this one. They’re like giant cats, and I love cats. When I read it, I got really into the planet and the species and their culture. The plot is that an old friend of Uhura’s is from this planet, and they “exchanged songs”…songs are a big deal in their culture. Anyway, there’s a plague threatening everyone on the planet and humans, too, and they think a song might hold the key to curing the disease, so they all go down on the planet to try and find it.

Strangers From The Sky by Margaret Wander Bonanno The plot to this one is…kind of hard to describe. Okay. So the parts with Jim and Spock go back and forth in time, part of the time being like, post-all the movies (I think) where they’re old friends (and really married, they’re just like. Margaret Bonanno has this way of inserting this really easy, casual intimacy they have with each other, and calling it friendship when OBVIOUSLY they’re married af, but either way I love it) and part of the time being very early on when Jim hasn’t been in command for long and he and Spock didn’t care much for each other (I mean personally I think they liked each other quite well from the start, but I’ll let it go, lol)… And then there’s a book. In the book. That everyone is reading and obsessed with and Jim starts reading it… It sounds weird, I know, but the book in the book is the story of the first time Vulcans came in contact with humans, long before the OFFICIAL first contact, it was when Vulcans crash landed on Earth and were discovered by some humans… I fucking love Vulcans, so that is obviously a great point of interest for me. Lol. Anyway when Jim reads the book he has nightmares, but then he discovers Spock has those nightmares, too, and it’s more than ‘just’ a book. Probably sounds bizarre but I really enjoyed it. ….and doesn’t every Trek plot EVER sound bizarre af when you try to describe it?

That’s all I’ve got right now!! This got so long I’M SO SORRY TBH BUT I HAD TO BE THOROUGH.

[chimepunk]

What novels or book series would you recommend?

oh fuckin boy dude so many. 90% of what i read is either gay or scifi/fantasy or both, and some are technically for a younger audience but still great, so thats what most of this is which hopefully you’re cool with here goes

this got super long so i’m putting it under a cut. bolded titles are the ones that i’m super recommending, though i love them all

novels

the coldest girl in coldtown by holly black - vampires! a trans character! a bi character! one of the most novel approaches to vampires in fiction that i’ve seen! 10/10 would recommend

the darkest part of the forest by holly black - again, holly black is one of my favorite authors. this one’s got faeries (the proper vaguely unsettling kind that i’m all about) magical music, girls embracing their sexuality, girls being knights, interesting sibling dynamics, and a super cute m/m pairing

les miserables by victor hugo - ok yeah, it’s like 1400 pages long and historical fiction, but i love les mis a lot ok. it’s gotta be on this list just because it owns my ass. it’s like a old drunk french man trying to tell you about the june rebellion but he keeps getting distracted by things like people’s personal lives, the intricacies of the parisian underworld, and how much he wants to fuck the sewers. it’s wonderful

the night circus by erin morgenstern - magical circus that mysteriously appears for days at a time and then vanishes? a competition between young magicians drawn out for years? a wide variety of fascinating side characters? (i will say that the synopsis available for the book is somewhat misleading, as it’s actually less about our two protags and more about the circus itself. but that’s what makes it so enchanting)

the song of achilles by madeleine miller - retelling of patroclus and achilles story to be explicitly romantic. will make you feel like you’re floating on clouds and then rapidly crush your soul. sort of a happy ending? but it’s still a tragedy. their ending is the same as it was in the illiad so if you’re not prepared for that then maybe don’t read

good omens by neil gaiman and terry pratchett - a demon who’s not very good at being a demon and an angel who just wants to collect his books in peace thank you very much try to sabotage the end of times. absolutely hilarious

fairy and folktales of the irish peasantry by w.b. yeats - the best collection of irish faerie stories by one of my favorite poets. if you like creepy and tricky faeries i would def recommend checking these out

rootabaga stories by carl sandburg - another collection of folktales, this time inspired by the american midwest. kinda weird, kinda zany, very neat

the poison eaters by holly black - a short story collection of faery stories that are sometimes creepy, sometimes touching, sometimes gay. my personal favorite is about a library science student who finds a book collection where the characters come out at night and interact, but they’re all really great

series:

alex rider adventures by anthony horowitz - teenager gets recruited by MI6 as a spy, has incredibly high success rate, gets pretty fucked up along the way but damn those one liners tho, maybe have some self preservation alex? just a thought

all for the game by nora sakavic - about a fake sport called exy that’s kind of like indoor lacrosse but more violent. contains: crime families, found families, an aspec protag, girls kicking ass, unhealthy levels of sass, wonderful slowburn m/m that you can’t even see coming for a long while, and a happy ending for everyone!! i came for the gays and ended up reading all three books in two days. also you can get the whole series for less than five bucks on kindle! (note: tw for rape, physical abuse, torture, ptsd, child abuse, drug use, alcoholism, some use of slurs, mentions of past self harm, mental illness)

artemis fowl by eoin colfer - more faeries, but this time they live underground and are way more technologically advanced than humans. the first book focuses on our anti-hero trying to catch one and steal their gold, and they quickly become allies and solve faerie related cases together!! one of my favorite series growing up, and i cried in the middle of the hallway at school when i finished the last book

camp half-blood series by rick riordan - does rick riordan write a lot of mythology books? yes. do i love them all? yes. neurodivergent kids! kids from a huge range of racial and ethnic backgrounds! queer kids! collect them all! ft. greco-roman mythology and a lot of stupid jokes

emelan series by tamora pierce - ok this is easily one of my favorite series of all time. non-western high fantasy setting (picture greece/turkey, china, tibet, mongolia, scandinavia, etc type settings), following four young mages who have unique kinds of magic as they train and grow their skills and become powerful in their own right. only one of the kids is definitely white (jury’s still out on sandry), one is a lesbian, one is ace, one is pan, all four are raised by a loving f/f couple, body diversity, one of the best found families i’ve ever read, feminism, discussion of racism, classism, cultural identity, war, and so much more. it’s so so good and so under-appreciated please read all of the emelan books 

the dark is rising sequence by susan cooper - full disclosure i have not finished this series yet but i’ve re-read the first book a million times. it’s a neat take on arthurian mythology, with dark forces trying to take over and kids getting shit done

diviners by libba bray - psychic teenagers in 1920s new york! i’m a slut for prohibition, but these are also super fun and have likable and real characters, and doesn’t only focus on wealthy white people having parties which is nice. the occult! government conspiracies! historical references! genuinely scary situations! it’s rad!

the enchanted forest chronicles by patricia c. wrede - i adore this series so so much. it’s about a princess who’s father keeps telling her that she can’t have hobbies like fencing or cooking or conjugating latin verbs because they’re unladylike and insists that she marry this doofus prince that she couldn’t care less about. so she runs away and volunteers to work for a dragon and proceeds to send away all the princes that try to rescue her. it’s genuinely funny, has a really neat magic system in the later books, great female friendships, cats, dragons who have no time for your gender roles, and wizards who are the most ridiculous group of antagonists you will ever see

the infernal devices by cassandra clare - i really really do not like the author of this series but it also broke me so it must go on the list. if you’re familiar with the mortal instruments or shadowhunters on freeform, it’s set in that universe in the 1870s in london and it’s very steampunk and very angsty and it made me cry a lot

the kane chronicles by rick riordan - see: camp half-blood series but egyptian

fablehaven by brandon mull - oooooh fuck me up i love this series. this is another one meant for slightly younger readers but all of brandon mull’s series are so wildly imaginative and i’m a slut for world building so. the premise is basically that there are secret preserves all over the world that house magical creatures, and five of these preserves have vaults with artifacts that when brought together make a key to this massive demon prison. an evil society called the society of the evening star is trying to get the artifacts to open the prison, and a different group who is allied with the preserves called the knights of the dawn is trying to get to them first to prevent this from happening. there are dragons, light and dark powers, crazy convoluted vaults to get through, and some really cool creatures and characters

beyonders by brandon mull - this guy again! this one’s about a parallel world called lyrian that people on earth can only get to through small liminal windows, and usually can’t get back through. the story follows two kids, jason and rachel, who get stuck in lyrian and end up becoming major members of the resistance against the evil emperor maldor. just like fablehaven, the world building is insane and you’ll fall in love with all the characters. this is yet another series that made me cry in the middle of class when i finished it

the kingkiller chronicle by patrick rothfuss - this is series is long as all fuck and the last book isn’t out yet but it’s my #1 favorite series of all time. i found out about it bc a cashier at a local grocery store held up the line to write it down for me and i never went back. parts of it are achingly, hauntingly beautiful, other parts are hilarious enough to leave you in stitches, others make you want to pull your hair out. there’s sass, recklessness, beautiful and deadly girls, an overwhelming love and emphasis on the importance of music and storytelling, magic that’s more like science, ethnic adversity, student loans, a thing that might be a cow or might be a dragon depending on who you ask, and more quotable lines than you could dream of. the audiobook by nick podehl is also fabulous, and lin manuel miranda is producing and adapting it for the screen and maybe stage at some point in the future!

a modern faerie tale by holly black - guys. i love holly black. almost everything she’s ever written is on this list. this one is fairly self explanatory by the title, but it’s gritty and dark and has those lovely creepy faeries that she’s so great at writing. also a surprising m/m couple in the last book, both of whom are characters in the other two installments. (tw for drug use/addiction, brief sexual assault, and probably other things that i can’t remember right now)

the raven cycle by maggie stiefvater - also in my top 3 favorite series of all time, i cannot begin to describe this series. i first read it while up in the nc mountains which improved the experience to a surprising degree, but it’s stuck with me for the last several years. basically 5 teenagers go in search of a dead welsh king, but along the way there is magic, psychics, ghosts, a sentient forest, dreams becoming reality, curses, teenage shenanigans, classic cars, swearing, church, kisses and not kisses, illict hand holding, a baby crow, bisexuality, a death list, hitmen, and nicknames and it will consume your heart before you know what’s happening to you (tw child abuse, implied sexual assault, substance abuse, dissociation, mentions of past suicide attempts, body horror, gore, and disturbing scenes esp. in the last book)

six of crows by leigh bardugo - a team of criminals band together to break into an impossible fortress, fall in love, con an entire city, and get rich. set in the same universe as the grisha trilogy (which is also good but not as good as soc), this is basically a heist followed by a con, but pulled off by ruthless teenagers and with the help of magic

curseworker trilogy by holly black - crime families, magic that can only done through touch so everyone wears gloves, moral ambiguity, and a twisted romance. one of holly black’s best and most underrated series

baccano! by ryohgo narita - this is a japanese light novel series which has been adapted into an anime, but is much more extensive in print. the plot is extremely convoluted, but an absolute ride spanning several centuries, although the bulk of it is in the 1930s in nyc and chicago. there’s an elixir of immortality, crime families, trains, a solipsistic assassin and his mute assassin gf, serial killers, a demon with a catch phrase, murder, explosions, adorable couples, gambling, a gang leader named jacuzzi who is always terrified, killer corporations, and much much more

no.6 by asuka asano - another japanse series, this time focusing on two boys, one who grew up in a utopian city, the other who grew up outside the walls after the city destroyed his life. they meet when they’re 12 years old, and several years later, they’re reunited when the outsider rescues the city boy from arrest. they, along with a pimp and a nonbinary dog hotel owner, try to expose and overthrow the government. also ft. drag performances, mice who like shakespeare, killer bees, and boys falling in love.

the merlin saga by t.a. barron - my favorite take on arthurian mythology, chronicling merlin as he comes into his power. there’s a vividly magical island, giants, amulets, talking trees, stones that will try to swallow you, a swamp witch, celtic deities, huge wicker hats, poetry, new kinds of fruit, people that are also deer, and human’s long lost wings.

[forlawfirmsonlymarketing]

11 Reasons Your Website Can Have a High Bounce Rate via @amelioratethis

The dreaded high bounce rate. It makes the shoulders of online marketers tense up and causes their foreheads to wrinkle up with concern.

What Is Bounce Rate?

As a refresher, bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors that leave your website (or “bounce” back to the search results or referring website) after viewing only one page on your site. Before you start worrying, consider that “high” is a relative term. Most websites will see bounce rates between 26% to 70%, according to a RocketFuel study. Based on the data they gathered, they provided a bounce rate grading system of sorts:

25% or lower: Something is probably broken

26-40%: Excellent

41-55%: Average

56-70%: Higher than normal, but could make sense depending on the website

70% or higher: Bad and/or something is probably broken

The overall bounce rate for your site will live in the Audience Overview tab of Google Analytics. You can find your bounce rate for individual channels and pages in the behavior column of most views in Google Analytics. There are a number of reasons your website can have a high bounce rate. Let’s review 10 common ones and how to fix them.

1. Slow-to-Load Page

Site speed is part of Google’s ranking algorithm, so it’s just good SEO to focus on it. Google wants to promote content that provides a positive experience for users, and they recognize that a slow site can provide a poor experience. If your page takes longer than a few seconds to load, your visitors may get fed up and leave. Fixing site speed is a lifelong journey for most SEO pros and webmasters, but the upside is that with each incremental fix, you should see an incremental boost in speed. Review your page speed (overall and for individual pages) using tools like:

Google PageSpeed Insights.

Pingdom.

GTMetrix.

They’ll offer you recommendations specific to your site, such as compressing your images, reducing third-party scripts, and leveraging browser caching.

2. Self-Sufficient Content

In some cases, the user will get everything they were looking for from the page on your site. This can be a wonderful thing – perhaps you’ve achieved the content marketer’s dream and created awesome content that wholly consumed them for a handful of minutes in their lives! Or perhaps you have a landing page that only requires the user to complete a short lead form. To determine whether bounce rate is nothing to worry about, you’ll want to look at the Time Spent on Page and Average Session Duration metrics in Google Analytics. If the user is spending a couple of minutes or more on the page, that sends a positive signal to Google that they found your page highly relevant to their search query. If you want to rank for that particular search query, that kind of user intent is gold. If the user is spending less than a minute on the page (which may be the case of a properly optimized landing page with a quick-hit CTA form), consider enticing the reader to read some of your related blog posts after filling out the form.

3. Disproportional Contribution by a Few Pages

If we expand on the example from the previous section, you may have a few pages on your site that are contributing disproportionally to the overall bounce rate for your site. Google is savvy at recognizing the difference between these. So if your single CTA landing pages reasonably satisfy user intent and cause them to bounce quickly after taking action, but your longer-form content pages have a lower bounce rate, you’re probably good to go. However, you will want to dig in and confirm that this is the case or discover if some of these pages with a higher bounce rate shouldn’t be causing users to leave en masse. Open up Google Analytics, go to Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages, and sort by Bounce Rate. Consider adding an advanced filter to remove pages that might skew the results. For example, it’s not necessarily helpful to agonize over the one Twitter share with 5 visits that have all your social UTM parameters tacked onto the end of the URL. My rule of thumb is to determine a minimum threshold of volume that is significant for the page. Choose what makes sense for your site, whether it’s 100 visits or 1,000 visits, then click on Advanced and filter for Sessions greater than that.

4. Misleading Title Tag and/or Meta Description

Ask yourself: Is the content of your page accurately summarized by your title tag and meta description? If not, visitors may enter your site thinking your content is about one thing, only to find that it isn’t, and then bounce back to whence they came. Whether it was an innocent mistake or you were trying to game the system by optimizing for keyword clickbait (shame on you!), this is, fortunately, simple enough to fix. Either review the content of your page and adjust the title tag and meta description accordingly or rewrite the content to address the search queries you really want to attract visitors for.

5. Blank Page or Technical Error

If your bounce rate is exceptionally high and you see that people are spending less than a few seconds on the page, it’s likely your page is blank, returning a 404, or otherwise not loading properly. Take a look at the page from your audience’s most popular browser and device configurations (e.g., Safari on desktop and mobile, Chrome on mobile, etc.) to replicate their experience. You can also check in Search Console under Coverage to discover the issue from Google’s perspective. Correct the issue yourself or talk to someone who can – an issue like this can cause Google to drop your page from the search results in a hurry.

6. Bad Link from Another Website

It’s possible you could be doing everything perfect on your end to achieve a normal or low bounce rate from organic search results, and still have a high bounce rate from your referral traffic. The referring site could be sending you unqualified visitors or the anchor text and context for the link could be misleading. Sometimes this is a result of sloppy copywriting. The writer or publisher linked to your site in the wrong part of the copy, or didn’t mean to link to your site at all. Start by reaching out to the author of the article, then the editor or webmaster if the author doesn’t have the ability to update post-publish. Plead your case and politely ask them to remove the link to your site or update the context, whichever makes sense. (Tip: you can easily find their contact information with this awesome guide by Joshua Daniels.) Unfortunately, the referring website may be trying to sabotage you with some negative SEO tactics, out of spite or just for fun. For example, they may have linked to your Guide to Adopting a Puppy with the anchor text of FREE GET RICH QUICK SCHEME. You should still reach out and politely ask them to remove the link, but if needed, you’ll want to update your disavow file in Search Console. Disavowing the link won’t reduce your bounce rate, but it will tell Google not to take that site’s link into account when it comes to determining the quality and relevance of your site.

7. Affiliate Landing Page or Single-Page Site

If you’re an affiliate, the whole point of your page may be to deliberately send people away from your website to the merchant’s site. In these instances, you’re doing the job right if the page has a higher bounce rate. A similar scenario would be if you have a single-page website, such as a landing page for your ebook or a simple portfolio site. It’s common for sites like these to have a very high bounce rate since there’s nowhere else to go. Remember that Google can usually tell when a website is doing a good job satisfying user intent even if the user’s query is answered super quickly (sites like WhatIsMyScreenResolution.com come to mind). If you’re interested, you can adjust your bounce rate so it makes more sense for the goals of your website.

8. Low-Quality or Under Optimized Content

Visitors may be bouncing from your website because your content is just plain bad. Take a long, hard look at your page and have your most judgmental and honest colleague or friend review it (ideally, this person either has a background in content marketing or copywriting, or they fall into your target audience). One possibility is that your content is great, but you just haven’t optimized it for online reading.

Are you writing in simple sentences (think high school students vs. PhDs)?

Is it easily scannable with lots of header tags?

Have you included images to break up the copy and make it easy on the eyes?

Writing for the web is different than writing for written publications. Brush up your online copywriting skills to increase the time people spend reading your content. The other possibility is that your content is poorly written overall or simply isn’t something your audience cares about. Consider hiring a freelance copywriter or content strategist who can help you revamp your ideas into powerful content that converts.

9. Bad or Obnoxious UX

Are you bombarding people with ads, pop-up surveys, and email subscribe buttons? CTA-heavy features like these may be irresistible to the marketing and sales team, but using too many of them can make a visitor run for the hills. Is your site confusing to navigate? Perhaps your visitors are looking to explore more, but your blog is missing a search box or the menu items are difficult to click on a smartphone. As online marketers, we know our websites in and out. It’s easy to forget that what seems intuitive to us is anything but to our audience. Make sure you’re avoiding these common design mistakes, and have a web or UX designer review the site and let you know if anything pops out to them as problematic.

10. The Page Isn’t Mobile-Friendly

While we know it’s important to have a mobile-friendly website, the practice isn’t always followed in the real world. In fact, one study found that nearly a quarter of the top websites in 2018 were indeed not mobile-friendly. Websites that haven’t been optimized for mobile don’t look good on mobile devices – and they don’t load too fast, either. That’s a recipe for a high bounce rate. Even if your website site was implemented using responsive design principles, it’s still possible that the live page doesn’t read as mobile-friendly to the user. Sometimes, when a page gets squeezed into a mobile format, it causes some of the key information to move below-the-fold. Now, instead of seeing a headline that matches what they saw in search, mobile users only see your site’s navigation menu. Assuming the page doesn’t offer what they need, they bounce back to Google. If you see a page with a high bounce rate and no glaring issues immediately jump out to you, test it on your mobile phone. You can identify non-mobile-friendly pages at-scale using Google’s free Test My Site tool.

11. Wonky Google Analytics Setup

It’s possible that you haven’t properly implemented Google Analytics and added the tracking codes to all the pages on your site. Google explains how to fix that here.

5 Pro Tips for Reducing Your Bounce Rate

Regardless of the reason behind your high bounce rate, here’s a summary of best practices you can implement to bring it down.

1. Make Sure Your Content Lives Up to the Hype

Your title tag and meta description effectively act as your website’s virtual billboard in Google. Whatever you’re advertising in the SERPs, your content needs to match. Don’t call your page an ultimate guide if it’s a short post with three tips. Don’t claim to be the “best” vacuum if your user reviews show a 3-star rating. You get the idea. Also, make your content readable:

Break up your text with lots of white space.

Add supporting images.

Use short sentences.

Spellcheck is your friend.

2. Keep Critical Elements Above the Fold

Sometimes, your content matches what you advertise in your title tag and meta description; visitors just can’t tell at first glance. When people arrive on a website, they make an immediate first impression. You want that first impression to validate whatever they thought they were going to see when they arrived. A prominent H1 should match the title they read on Google. If it’s an ecommerce site, a photo should match the description.

3. Speed Up Your Site

When it comes to SEO, faster is always better. Keeping up with site speed is a task that should remain firmly stuck to the top of your SEO to-do list. There will always be new ways to compress, optimize, and otherwise accelerate load time.

Implement AMP.

Compress all images before loading them to your site, and only use the maximum display size necessary.

Review and remove any external or load-heavy scripts, stylesheets, and plugins. If there are any you don’t need, remove them. For the ones you do need, see if there’s a faster option.

Tackle the basics: Use a CDN, minify JavaScript and CSS, and set up browser caching.

4. Minimize Non-Essential Elements

Don’t bombard your visitors with pop-up ads, in-line promotions, and other content they don’t care about. Visual overwhelm can cause visitors to bounce. What CTA is the most important for the page? Highlight that in a compelling way. For everything else, delegate it to your sidebar or footer.

5. Help People Get Where They Want to Be Faster

Want to encourage people to browse more of your site? Make it easy for them. Leverage on-site search with predictive search, helpful filters, and an optimized “no results found” page. Rework your navigation menu and A/B test how complex vs. simple drop-down menus affect your bounce rate. Include a Table of Contents in your long-form articles with anchor links taking people straight to the section they want to read.

Summary

Hopefully, this article will help you diagnose what’s causing your high bounce rate, and you have a good idea how to fix it. Now get to it! More Resources:

Image Credits In-Post Image: RocketFuel All screenshots taken by author, October 2019

https://www.businesscreatorplus.com/11-reasons-your-website-can-have-a-high-bounce-rate-via-amelioratethis/