UPDATE: I’ve released a WordPress plugin for adding the reading time estimate and buttons to your own WordPress site. Download Read Later Buttons from the plugin repository.

I love writing long content again. I haven’t kept up a blog in forever, and Twitter’s 140 character chunks of content were really starting to cramp my style. So when Amazon announced their new “Send to Kindle” button, only one thing kept me from jumping for joy: a fever. Ok, two things, fever and nauseousness but the point is that were I in the kind of physical shape for bouncing around with glee, you can bet I would have been. I’d have been doing cartwheels, I assure you. And I don’t even know how to do a cartwheel!

On March 18th, I dragged myself over to my computer and gave this blog a custom “Send to Kindle” button based on Amazon’s, with CSS3 button styling and a SVG logo. Then, I did the same for three other popular read later services. Now, I could write thousand-word posts and people wouldn’t need to feel pressured to read them in one sitting.

I also added a reading time estimate based on the average American adult reading speed, like you see on the Boagworld blog. I figured people would see a five or ten minute read ahead of them and save my longer articles for when they have a chance to put on their slippers and read by the fire, assuming anyone does that anymore.

My bounce rate dropped overnight

Instead of giving people an escape hatch, though, that addition seems to have lowered my bounce rate by 13%! For those new to running web sites, the bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who left the site after viewing just one page. For example, if someone found this post through Google, read it, and then hit their browser’s back button, that would be counted as a bounce.

A visitor may bounce by:
  • Clicking on a link to a page on a different web site
  • Closing an open window or tab
  • Typing a new URL
  • Clicking the “Back” button to leave the site
  • Session timeout
- Wikipedia entry for bounce rate

From March 1st through the 17th, the average bounce rate for davidmichaelross.com was 90.45%, with the majority of traffic coming directly to blog posts. Yet after adding a time estimate, the bounce rate averaged 77.58% for the rest of the month.

An A/B test would prove this was the actual cause of the drop, but I doubt the timing is coincidental. I’ll bet people are less intimidated by long posts if they know they can sneak them into a coffee break or a quick diversion between meetings. They like what they see, and they’re sticking around to see what else this site has to offer.

Raw data

  1. Day            Bounce Rate
  2. Mar 1, 2013      89.58%
  3. Mar 2, 2013      92.59%
  4. Mar 3, 2013      88.89%
  5. Mar 4, 2013      89.83%
  6. Mar 5, 2013      93.75%
  7. Mar 6, 2013      74.36%
  8. Mar 7, 2013      91.18%
  9. Mar 8, 2013      91.67%
  10. Mar 9, 2013      93.33%
  11. Mar 10, 2013     94.12%
  12. Mar 11, 2013     96.77%
  13. Mar 12, 2013     92.45%
  14. Mar 13, 2013     86.67%
  15. Mar 14, 2013     93.75%
  16. Mar 15, 2013     91.43%
  17. Mar 16, 2013     84.00%
  18. Mar 17, 2013     93.33%
  19. Mar 18, 2013     76.47%
  20. Mar 19, 2013     76.92%
  21. Mar 20, 2013     82.14%
  22. Mar 21, 2013     70.37%
  23. Mar 22, 2013     63.64%
  24. Mar 23, 2013     75.00%
  25. Mar 24, 2013     83.33%
  26. Mar 25, 2013     87.76%
  27. Mar 26, 2013     73.17%
  28. Mar 27, 2013     84.38%
  29. Mar 28, 2013     80.00%
  30. Mar 29, 2013     77.27%
  31. Mar 30, 2013     85.71%
  32. Mar 31, 2013     70.00%
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