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Hi all.
I've just added google analytics (like you do) and found I have a "Bounce Rate" of around 50% which, I am led to believe, is a little on the high side.
I wondered if anyone had any successful experience of reducing "Bounce" and if they would care to share their views and methods (if you don't see this as sharing info with the competition)
Your insights would be most appreciated.
Thanks in anticipation.
I wouldn't say this really appropriate for the content writing section, because the reasons you're getting a high bounce ratio could be anything from the design, to the type of site you run, or .. even the content.
Taking one of your sites in your signature as an example (cupidstunsquiz.com) I wouldn't be suprised if there was a high bounce rate for this. Mainly because it's yet another pyramid scheme, but also because the design is crude and disorientating.
Check out the website reviews section and get other people to review the site with the high bounce rate... general overall improvements should lead to less bouncers
Please, guys tell me if bounce rate means that a page or more have been dropped by a Search Engine?
No, it means that visitors are entering your site and backing out before spending any time there. As mentioned above, it could be because of either poor content or poor design. It may even be that they aren't finding the same information on your site that was in the description of your site in the search engine results.Originally Posted by guigee
Linda Jenkinson
"Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean." ~Unknown
Hi and thanks for the replies.
HarryR, I'm not sure quite what you mean by a pyramid scheme, crude it may be as it's my first attempt at producing a site and some elaboration on the disorientating comments would be useful but hey thanks for the feedback.
guigee, bounce is a term to reflect the number of people who visit the site though leave without navigating to another page/part of the site. i believe anything over 60% is considered high and could lead to sites featuring less prominentlt in searches than those with a lower bounce percentage/rate.
I'm sure someone may have a more concise and precide method of explaining.
Regards
thanks to everybody for helpful reply....
guigee
Hi jominsons and Linda,
Thanks for the speedy and helpful reply.
guigee
As Harry said, if you want a site review, put your site in the "Review my site forum". That's where you'll get elaboration on review questions.
Your explanation of bounce rate is incorrect. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with navigation. Is the bounce rate of a single-page website always 100%?
If visitors spend time on your home page (or any other page) that page won't show a bounce rate. Bounce rate is when the SE algorithm ascertains that visitors have backed out of a page on access.
I'd also be interested to know how you came up with 60%. Losing half of your visitors isn't much better than losing 3/5s of them. If you're getting 100 visitors a day and only half of them stay to read your sales message, then you have effectively devalued your chances of reaching even the abysmal average 1% conversion rate... and most certainly have little or no chance of bettering it.
Linda Jenkinson
"Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean." ~Unknown
Hi Linda
Just for the record, I never stated I wanted a site review. I asked HarryR to expand on his comments not provide a site optimisation report.
I've just become aware of the term bounce and if anyone had any info to share for a beginner.
I have never claimed to be an expert on the terminology and remember expressing that someone would be able to offer a better and more accurate explanation than I.
The 60% I refer to was quoted in another article (not on sitepoint) which appeared knowlegable, a flaw when researching on the web I suppose.
Apologies for posting in the wrong forum if I have though I believed that the stuff that went on a webpage would come under content.
I must say this has been my most negative post on sitepoint to date, I thought the idea was to share information, experience and knowledge, not to generate vague generalisations and comment on the beaurocracy of who posts what where.
Thanks for clearing the air. I guess your original question got lost in the fog and I apologize for that. You never did ask what to do on your site, you asked what others do to reduce the bounce rate and you are right — That's exactly the purpose of these forums... to help others learn through the experiences of their peers.
The way to reduce bounce is to go over your site and make sure that each page has the information you advertise (through the SE) that it has. Although they don't use them for ranking weight, search engines still use your META description to describe your content in the results. Make sure your META descriptions give good information as to the content of each page. Although I haven't looked at your site, one mistake that many sites make is to use the same META description for each page. Remember, that search engines index pages and make each description unique to the page.
If you're experiencing bounce from page to page, be sure that your text links are descriptive in telling your visitors where they lead. Although links such as "click here" may induce an impulse to click, it doesn't help you if the visitor doesn't find relevant information on the next page. If you have trouble making short descriptions within your content, use the title attribute in your links.
Finally, write your page content for your visitors and not the search engines. Be sure that it's easy to read and easy to understand and full of the information they requested in their search query.Code:<a href="mylink.ext" title="description of my link"> My link</a>
Linda Jenkinson
"Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean." ~Unknown
Oh, I was talking about the answering questionares in return for expensive gadgets thing. In my book atleast it's along the lines of the other pyramid schemes out there (e.g. recruit 10 friends and get a gadget, like the traditional free ipod thing).
If that's the site you're having bounces on, it could just be becase people have a bad view of that type of site and con't care to continue.
Many thanks for the replies much appreciated.
Shyflower
Thanks for the comprehensive answer. After reading some articles on the web (gonna have to stop doing that I think) I was under the impression that the meta descriptions were ignored by the search engines due to over abuse to affect rank positioning in the past so I don't use them, however I forgot to consider what impression it may give the browser (the person perusing the web and not the software browser) so I'll look into that.
I could probably do with a peer critical review re the functionality, use of the site so I think I will head over to the "Review my site" as suggested.
HarryR
Also thanks for getting back to me. I think there may well be a problem with how my site is perceived. It doesn't offer the chance of prizes for completing questionnaires as you believe, it is a competition site that offers prizes for the winner of a easy-ish multi choice quiz (for which there is a small fee to play).
The fact that's not clear and led to the mis-understanding highlights that somethings not quite right and that the content needs work. So your feedback has been most useful, perhaps others are viewing it as you do and that is why people aren't converting as much as I'd like (as if they ever do !)
As previously stated, thanks for the help and I apologise if my question was ambiguous.
Regards and best wishes.
The main factors are the design, content, and color scheme. Try using WordPress as a CMS and templates that are pleasing to the eye and easy to read. Remember, if the user can't find what they want in about five seconds they're going to take off.
Also, try to make it quite clear in regards to what your site is about early on in the viewers experience. If they can see a heading that says "Learn How to Write Better Copy" and they're looking for copy writing techniques they'll probably stick around and read that heading, but it's unlikely that they're going to read other headings that are unrelated.
Essentially, grab their interest via catchy headlines that are displayed prominently (but not overstated ala ClickBank style) and ensure that the content is easy to read. As well, make sure that the design looks modern and eye pleasing.
Hope that helps!
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Sorry, I have to disagree with the involvement of any SE.If visitors spend time on your home page (or any other page) that page won't show a bounce rate. Bounce rate is when the SE algorithm ascertains that visitors have backed out of a page on access.
The bounce rate is determined independently of any SE.
It is the number of visitors who only view one page of a site divided by all visitors.
The importance of bounce rate is relative to the circumstances.
For example, some one page wonders *want* a high bounce rate, as long as the visitor takes one of the money making outbound links.
In another scenario, if a lot of referrals are to long tail phrases that have an interest for the visitor but are not within the main subject area for a site then a high bounce rate is to be expected and not necessarily a bad thing. It is simply that the visitor has what he came for, and noting that the site has nothing else of interest, he leaves. One example: a web site that has a specific reference page of great interest to general consurmers that ranks well in the SE's will get a lot of bounces as visitors arrive to make note of that one thing and then leave.
In that case, the way I use bounce rate is to adjust the conversion rate. The mental adjustment I make is: conversions/(new visitors-bounces)
The important thing to realise is that no single statistic can be read in isolation and that all statistics are relative. The charts I use most have a high-low range of +1 to -1 with a 0 midline. The attraction is that it forces the view to be relative at all times because no absolute data points are presented.
plumsauce I believe you are right. two pages could have the same bounce rightthough have vastly different amounts of time spent on that page, as you say one leaving immediately due to there being nothing of interest and the other taking some time to illicit the information they require.
Would you think the that time spent by the browser on the site/page is more informative of the quality of the desciption to the page content and the quality of the content than bounce rate ?
From Google Analytics:
Bounce Rate is the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page). Bounce Rate is a measure of visit quality and a high Bounce Rate generally indicates that site entrance (landing) pages aren't relevant to your visitors. You can minimize Bounce Rates by tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run. Landing pages should provide the information and services that were promised in the ad copy.
Linda Jenkinson
"Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean." ~Unknown
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