90% website bounce rate - What am I doing wrong?

[Polycount]

(Also not getting any comments on any of my articles)

Hi, everyone! I'm very new to the community here, but I'm honestly at my wits end.

I've run an affiliate marketing site for about 8 months now, and I've consistently had issues with bounce rate. I've tried to look into it myself, but I can't seem to determine what the issue is.

A couple things, though - One, a lot of my traffic currently goes to two articles which don't actually have any intent to convert. I didn't even write those articles for the sake of conversion, they were just for fun and I thought they'd be useful to people who stumbled across them. So that could be one reason my bounce rate is so high, but I'm not sure.Anyway, I've asked a LOT of people in the past (I was part of an affiliate marketing community at one point - I asked the founders, friends, strangers, and other successful affiliate marketers about this) if there's anything wrong with my content, etc. The answer has always been no, that it's good.

I'm sorry. My thoughts are a bit scatterbrained here. I just don't know what to do here. If all my content for 8 months has just utterly sucked, I'd feel pretty demotivated, but at least I could know what to improve going forward. That's what I need help with from you guys.

Here's my website, though I'm not sure if links are allowed: http://cheapgamesguru.com/

My latest articles aren't really getting any traffic at all yet, so I'm not really concerned with them. Specifically, ignore my Future of the HTC Vive, Crusader Kings 2, and World of Warcraft articles. Those are part of my "fun blogs" where I just write about games and such with no real intent to convert. If they start getting traffic, then I'll go and add some more internal links or CTAs.

However, a couple articles that I AM having issues with are here: http://cheapgamesguru.com/top-5-best-mid-tower-cases ; http://cheapgamesguru.com/top-5-computer-case-fans-the-best-case-fans-for-your-rig ; http://cheapgamesguru.com/what-is-the-best-micro-atx-case-for-gaming-top-5-best-micro-atx-cases (The links on the Micro ATX article are currently broken - This could very well be one of the reasons! However, this trend of high bounce rates started quite some time ago, so it's still an issue)

Could it be as simple as a performance problem? I haven't checked my pagespeed recently, not since I switched to a new (Faster) host. I know users are far more likely to leave if the site doesn't load within 3 seconds.

Another possible reason is referral spam, of course. I've tried my very best to eliminate it as much as possible, used filtering tools, etc. but I can't seem to completely eradicate it.

Thanks in advance! Ask me for any details you might need.

[MattRoney]

I have to agree that the first thing to consider (well, after fixing those broken links) is how your content ties into your conversion funnel. What compels me to stay on your site once I've found the answer I'm looking for? For example, if I'm just looking for recommendations for fans and I land on your post about them, once I've read, why wouldn't I click right back to Google?

Out of curiosity, what constitutes a conversion for you? If a visitor doesn't bounce away, what would you prefer them to do?

[BentoPres]

What exactly is your question?

You experience high bounce rate on the articles aimed at converting visitors to buying affiliate products? And other (non-converting) pages do get way more visitors?

Because those are two different things: number of visitors (people arriving) and high bounce rates (% of people leaving again after visiting).

So…

• is not getting traffic to your converting your problem?
• or are visitors going to the wrong pages?
• or is just plainly not conversing your main problem?

Because when you're able to pull in audience with some pages, then the problem will be mainly content related (in my opinion). That content does resonate. Other content doesn't. Maybe it is due to the nature of your content (e.g. game reviews may be more popular than hardware reviews?) or the way you present your content (your tendency in writing different kinds of articles).

Or perhaps there is more competition for the targeted subject? Or there is far less traffic for the targeted subject.

Do you have an idea of the total volumes for the targeted audiences and what your SERP results are on the targeted keywords?