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Hello Nuffnangers!

We have an exciting, new Product Talk opportunity for you.

Is your immune system taking a hit now that winter’s setting in?

Don’t worry, Vitality Brands has made getting your antioxidants easier, by creating delicious
AntiOx Snack Bars and Chocolate, which are high in natural antioxidants that can help boost your immunity!

Thanks to the wonderful people at Vitality Brands, you now have the chance to trial one of twenty AntiOx product packs.

Each pack contains:

3 x snack bars (in Acai, Goji, and Chia and Quinoa varieties)

2 x chocolate (in Acai and Goji varieties) 

Vitality Brands are also kindly supplying an additional two AntiOx prize packs valued at over $30 each for you to give away to your readers in your product talk post!

AntiOx: Super-charge yourself with antioxidant goodness!

Vitality Brands has made getting your antioxidants easier, by creating delicious AntiOx Snack Bars and Chocolate, which are high in natural antioxidants that can help boost your immunity and enhance your wellbeing!

AntiOx Snack Bars are made with super fruits, super grains, wholegrains and delicious forest fruits, and covered in rich, 70% cocoa dark chocolate (which is also sugar-free and sweetened naturally with stevia). Thanks to its high cocoa content, the chocolate provides an additional source of antioxidants.

AntiOx Chocolate combines the antioxidant super power of sugar-free, 70% cocoa dark chocolate and superfruits, goji and acai. The result is an antioxidant hit that is equivalent to twelve cups of green tea! Plus the chocolate is sweetened naturally with plant-based stevia – eliminating excess calories.

To review the above products:

• You have to be a part of Nuffnang and have a Nuffnang Ad Unit on your blog.

• Email your blog URL and address with the subject line NN/AntiOx to producttalk@nuffnang.com.au by COB Monday 29 May.

• We will contact the 20 most relevant bloggers that opt in and at the same time, send the product out for you to review!

• Once you have written up and published the review on your blog, please once again, email the URL to producttalk@nuffnang.com.au.

It’s double the celebrations with a new addition and some changes to Nuffnang!

Calling all bloggers who have friends in the UK!

We’ve finally arrived in the land of football, Harry Potter, the Queen, Wimbledon & afternoon tea! :p We at Nuffnang are so pleased to announce that we are yet again growing roots in another continent. This time in Europe!

Remember those old stories about Ming and Tim meeting at a Pussycat Dolls concert while they were studying in the UK? After conquering Southeast Asia & Australia, we’re finally going back to where it all began… LONDON!

So if you know any blogger friends in the UK, tell them to be part of the Nuffnang community! Share the opportunity with them to mingle with other bloggers, or even to score invites to awesome events!

OUT WITH THE OLD AND IN WITH THE NEW… TAGLINE!

Of course, growing our new community in the UK means that our old tagline would be geographically inaccurate, which just won’t do. Taking our next step towards world domination means changing for the better!

We present to you:

So as we celebrate Nuffnang UK, here’s a shout out to bloggers all over the world… we’re coming for you!

Say hello to Ivan Lim, the head of marketing at Tweaky.com, the #1 WordPress Developer Marketplace for Small Customizations. He is passionate about digital marketing, startups & peanut butter.

One Google Analytics metric that usually gets a lot of attention is the Bounce Rate. It’s a metric that has a fairly strong negative connotation around it. In fact it’s pretty common for Google Analytics users to say,

“The bounce rate is high, that can’t be good right?”

Wrong! Bounce rate isn’t a negative indicator it’s just a description of a specific behaviour. As stated by Google - Bounce rate is the percentage of visits that go to only one page before exiting a site.

“Only one page, that has to be bad!”

Well actually no, it’s not.  Many Google Analytics users waste time fretting about bounce rates instead of trying to understand the context of that number.

In this post I’m going to show you how to interpret Bounce Rates in various contexts within Google Analytics. Hopefully by the end of it you’ll have a deeper understanding of your site’s performance and stop judging success by that dreaded percentage.

Bounce Rate by Traffic Source

The first way to look at bounce rate is by traffic source, i.e where visitors are coming from (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc).

Before we do that though, let’s take a look at how most users look at bounce rate. Many people jump straight into the main overview page of Google Analytics and stare at their website’s bounce rate as the one source of truth.

The problem with this number is that it is an average. It doesn’t take into account the different segments of your website traffic.

A better way to do it would be to go to your All Traffic report in Google Analytics to analyse bounce rates across different sources of traffic.

Here you should see that every traffic source has it’s own bounce rate. Now we’re getting somewhere!

Google traffic seems to have a higher bounce rate which could be concerning but if you think about it most people arrive to your site via Google because they’ve been looking for answers to a specific question. They then find your blog, get their questions answered and move on. Your content isn’t bad, it’s just answered their questions.

Possible solutions? Maybe having more links to other pages on your site within blog posts or having a more obvious Related Posts section at the bottom of each post.

Another way to segment your visitors is looking at email traffic from your newsletters. This traffic is likely to have a higher bounce rate because they’re regular readers of your blog. They’ve read most of your content so when they get an email about new content, they read it and they’re done.

As a side note, if you don’t have email traffic showing your report you need to read this post on how to track email traffic in Google Analytics.

Bounce rate by content type

Another way to chop up your data and get a better look at bounce rates is by content type. Jump through to your Landing Pages report and start looking at bounce rates by different pages that people land on.  

In this report you can start finding out things like

- Do certain content topics have a lower bounce rate than others?
- Do certain blog lengths do better? Long posts can sometimes tire readers out
- Do different formats have lower bounce rates? Top 5 lists versus opinion posts.

As another example, if you ever run a competition with a landing page for people to sign up, expect to see high bounce rates. People visit that landing page, register and move on. There is less chance of them browsing and looking around.

Once again understanding bounce rates in context makes a huge difference to knowing how well you’re tracking.

Bounce rate by visitor type

The last variable you want to look at for measuring bounce rates is visitor type. One I like to look at regularly is New vs Returning visitors. New visitors will tend to have a higher bounce rate because they don’t know much about you. The goal is to do as much as you can to increase engagement for new visitors.

How do you compare new vs returning visitor bounce rates. There are a few ways. You can jump to the New vs Returning Visitor report or you can use the advanced segment for New Visitors.

The other customer segment that’s really useful is looking at mobile traffic. If you don’t have a responsive mobile optimized site the chances are anyone who visits via a smartphone will bounce. Sites that have a high bounce rate for mobile visitors should look at making a mobile site or improving navigation for smartphone users.

The easiest way to look at mobile visitors is again use the advanced segment throughout your Google Analytics account.

Conclusion 

Hopefully you’ll never look at bounce rates the same again. The key is not to look at bounce rates as a negative stat but instead understand the number in context. Never look at bounce rate as an average for your entire site. Instead jump in, dive deep and understand bounce rates using one of the three segment types above.

Learn how to use Google Analytics on your blog with an exclusive presentation brought to you by Nuffnang, as Ivan explains the basics of Google Analytics for bloggers. One lucky webinar attendee will even WIN a personalised 1-hour Google Analytics training session from Tweaky.com, valued at $250! Register your interest now.

Source

What is Acupuncture? 

Acupuncture is an effective and safe non-invasive treatment for many medical conditions and general health and well-being. It works by enhancing the body’s natural healing ability.

It is commonly used for a range of conditions, and gets good results in treating and managing:

• Pain (back pain, neck pain, arthritis, headaches, migraines and period pain)
• Mental health (depression, anxiety, insomnia)
• Digestive problems (constipation, IBS, indigestion, reflux)
• Women’s health (fertility, irregular or painful periods, menopausal symptoms)
• Addiction (quitting smoking, substance withdrawal, general recovery)
• Holistic health (fatigue, metabolic issues, autoimmune conditions)

Acupuncture treatment in Australia has a history of being very expensive and only accessible to people on medium to high incomes. Prickle’s uniqueness has changed this, bridging the gap for people who want to receive acupuncture and Chinese medicine but can’t afford the cost.

What is Prickle?

Prickle’s mission is to help vulnerable sections of the community by promoting better health through Chinese medicine.

Health problems often accompany and compound socio-economic ones, so Prickle Community Acupuncture is built on a social enterprise model that offers high quality acupuncture services for as low as $25 a treatment for concession patients, helping those who need it the most. Acupuncture works best over a course of 6-8 treatments, so the affordable fee enables people to receive their full treatment, instead of only seeking band-aid solutions.

We cover our costs by also offering high quality treatments to other sections of the community. A treatment for a middle-to-high income patient is $50. The fees charged are to cover costs of operation, as Prickle Community Acupuncture is a non-profit organisation.

Prickle operates within a community health care clinic located centrally in Richmond. Our experienced practitioners provide tailored treatments, using acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine. All of our degree-qualified practitioners have extensive practical experience, and are passionate about Prickle’s social mission.

Thanks to Prickle, we are offering treatments to 6 x Melbourne bloggers to experience acupuncture for yourself!! All you have to do is TWEET @nuffnangau with what you need help with and HASHTAG #NNPrickle and we’ll hook you up! (: 

When you’ve got so many interesting articles to read on the Internet and no time to sort through them, have you ever wondered, “If only there was something that could help me decide what to read?”

We know that feeling. So, we created a special technology that will identify the most emotionally-charged line as the summary of an article. We found that the most emotive line is usually the most eye-catching!

It doesn’t matter if you’ve only got one minute or ten, all you have to do is browse through your feed and select the article with that one-liner that attracts your attention!

Like this one right here:

Or this one:

Meet the newest member of the Nuffnang team: Laura! She’s an Ad Operations Excecutive here, and if you haven’t spoken to her yet we’re sure you will soon. There’s no better way to get to know someone than, well, asking heaps of intimate questions, so the rest of our team ganged up on Laura with the following seven questions.

7 Facts about Nuffnang Ad Ops Executive, Laura:

What has been your most embarrassing moment?

I think my most traumatic embarrassing moment actually took place at my 21^st Birthday Party. I was a bit overwhelmed by the number of people I had to say hi to, and in the midst of introducing one of my friends – who I’d known for nearly three years – to another, I completely forgot her name. I could not for the life of me recall my friend’s name, and she knew it. Everyone standing with us knew it. We looked at each other for the most awkward 10 seconds of my life and thankfully, something in my brain finally clicked, and I was able to properly introduce her, but by then the damage had been done. To make up for my shameful memory lapse, I made a point of addressing her by name for the rest of the night, and if I’m to be honest, any time we’ve caught up since.

If you were to get a tattoo, what would you get?

I can’t see myself ever really getting a tattoo, but if I did get one it would probably be a little Leo zodiac symbol or something really geeky in Gallifreyan. Or on the off chance that the Melbourne Football Club ever wins a premiership: the letters, MFC and the year.  

If you were an animal, what would you be and why?

A house cat because they generally get a pretty good gig – they sleep, they’re fed, they’re forgiven for being moody, and they’re fussed over on a regular basis.

Sunrise or sunset?

Always sunset.

Who is your favourite singer or band to see live?

I’ve seen the Scissor Sisters a few times, and they’re always good value; I think it helps to have a former cage dancer as your frontman. But if I could see anyone live, it would be David Bowie, without question. My biggest regret is that I wasn’t familiar enough with his music in 2002 to snag myself a ticket to his Australian tour. It’s just about reached the point that if he were to ever announce a concert, money would be no object.

The worst thing I wore when I was a teenager was…

 A fake hair accessory. After putting my hair up in a bun, I’d tie this synthetic hairpiece around it. The plastic hair fanned out from the back of my head and disgusting skinny plaits ran down my back. I thought it was the coolest thing. It was the early 2000s, don’t judge me.

Describe your dream holiday!

At this stage it would have to be a big tour of Europe, but not one of those mad European tours where you end up coming home more tired than when you left. I’d like to take my time, probably prioritising Western Europe, but then also checking out the Mediterranean and soaking up some rays. If possible, I’d love to see Russia too, and I’d probably swing by Iceland because I’ve heard such great things about it. I like having plans when I travel, even if the plan is just to get lost in a new place, so travelling with someone who shares that kind of outlook and makes it a priority to go out and see things, is a must.

 Do you have a question for Laura? Ask away in the comments below!