wanna know how to improve our site's bounce rate

[jorgepson]

hello, just want to ask how am i going to improve the bounce rate our website. our site is <snip>. actually by the time i started doing the SEO from this, the generated traffic went up and double the previous traffic. however the bounce rate of the website also went up. for example the site generated traffic from australia twice as it was then, but the site's bounce rate went up to for about 55%. way back then the bounce rate is about 35%. so what should i do in order to balance the bounce rate and the visits?

thanks,
george

[TechnoBear]

Please remember that all review requests, including SEO reviews, should be made through the Reviews & Critiques forum, in accordance with its guidelines.

You can request general advice and information in this forum, but not a review of a specific site.

[jorgepson]

Please remember that all review requests, including SEO reviews, should be made through the Reviews & Critiques forum, in accordance with its guidelines.

You can request general advice and information in this forum, but not a review of a specific site.

sorry for that admin.

[Mikl]

It's not clear what exactly you are trying to measure. What do you mean by "the site's bounce rate went up to for about 55%"? 55% of what.

Mike

[royrobin]

Bear in mind that since the number of visitors have grown bounce rate might increase or decrease further. You will have to see the entry and exit page stats, where most users are coming from and where they are moving to.

Secondly from where the traffic is coming, is it relevant or not, if your traffic sources are not relevant to your content then bounce rate will definitely be high, hope you understand.

[PicnicTutorials]

Users must be able to tell what your selling or offering within 5 seconds or they bounce. Make sure they can

[jorgepson]

Bear in mind that since the number of visitors have grown bounce rate might increase or decrease further. You will have to see the entry and exit page stats, where most users are coming from and where they are moving to.

Secondly from where the traffic is coming, is it relevant or not, if your traffic sources are not relevant to your content then bounce rate will definitely be high, hope you understand.

thanks, actually this is my observation and this is the explanation i did to my boss.

i guess it's my bad in posting the content in the groups where someone or the members noticed the post then read it and then exit.

[rkweb]

Hi There,

thanks, actually this is my observation and this is the explanation i did to my boss.

i guess it's my bad in posting the content in the groups where someone or the members noticed the post then read it and then exit.

Well, Bounce Rate is an important factor which shows how many visitors visited your Website and went out without further moving to the other pages, which may happen due to the following reasons:

1. Visitor did not find any interesting thing on the landing page, so to move further to other pages.
2. Your Website loading time would be much more, visitors don't like the pages with more loading time and thus just close the Website without moving further.
3. Visitor found an inappropriate Website for what he was searching for, and it may happen you may have posted links to irrelevant niche.

I hope considering these few simple tips, and correcting these could help you towards your Website.

[Mikl]

George,

Sorry to labour the point, but I still think you'll get better answers if you tell us exactly what you are trying to measure. You talk about a bounce rate of 55%, but it's not clear what that means. Are you talking about the percentage of visitors who leave your site within a specific time? Or the percentage that leave without taking some desired action? Or what?

Mike

[9dotstrategies]

hello, just want to ask how am i going to improve the bounce rate our website. our site is <snip>. actually by the time i started doing the SEO from this, the generated traffic went up and double the previous traffic. however the bounce rate of the website also went up. for example the site generated traffic from australia twice as it was then, but the site's bounce rate went up to for about 55%. way back then the bounce rate is about 35%. so what should i do in order to balance the bounce rate and the visits?

thanks,
george

Here are lists of methods on how to lower your bounce rate:

1. Be Mindful of Ad Placement
2. Lazy-Load Third-Party Content
3. Contrast Is Key
4. Have Clean, Accessible Navigation
5. Your Message Should Be Immediately Obvious
6. No Distractions, Please
7. Have a Responsive Layout

More at:http://mashable.com/2012/02/02/lower-bounce-rate-tips/

[jorgepson]

ok here's the info for my question.

our client email us and asking what's going on, the bounce rate of the site got so high compare to the previous one.

site analytics' details for januray to september 2012

Visits: 34,904
Unique Visitors: 27, 569
Pageviews: 104,343
Pages / Visit: 2.99
Avg. Visit Duration: 00:02:01
Bounce Rate: 40.88%
% New Visits: 78.13%

site analytics' details for october 2012 to january 2013

Visits: 17,101
Unique Visitors: 12,662
Pageviews: 47,130
Pages / Visit: 2.76
Avg. Visit Duration: 00:02:22
Bounce Rate: 60.05%
% New Visits: 72.53%

the problem of our client is they blame our firm that the bounce rate of the site cause by us.

to explain further, our firm's products and services is web designing. our client see that after we've redesign the site it cause the site's bounce rate high.

is it our fault?

*** we started to redesign the site october 2012.


many thanks. hope that this is a little bit clear.

[seoexperttools]

^ It is possible that the high bounce rate is the web design because it is one of the factors that contributing to the user experience. If the users feel that the design is not good, cumbersome or unfriendly then it is possible that they would not want to use the site anymore.

However, they cannot just blame everything on the designer either because they are the one who approved the designs, right? Other possible causes might include content and policy as well.

[Ted S]

^ It is possible that the high bounce rate is the web design because it is one of the factors that contributing to the user experience. If the users feel that the design is not good, cumbersome or unfriendly then it is possible that they would not want to use the site anymore.

However, they cannot just blame everything on the designer either because they are the one who approved the designs, right? Other possible causes might include content and policy as well.

Or the source of the traffic, the price of the product / value of the service. People leave because they don't like what they see... that means both who comes and what they experience can be at fault and often it's both together.

[jorgepson]

^ It is possible that the high bounce rate is the web design because it is one of the factors that contributing to the user experience. If the users feel that the design is not good, cumbersome or unfriendly then it is possible that they would not want to use the site anymore.

However, they cannot just blame everything on the designer either because they are the one who approved the designs, right? Other possible causes might include content and policy as well.

well i check and compare the old structure of the website and the new structure. i find it more compelling to the eye the new structure / website design. they differ in the navigational. should i advise the designer to not to use drop down?

i am thinking that the main issue here is the drop down menu. the old website don't use drop down and the new site create drop down for navigation. so what do you think?

[Ted S]

well i check and compare the old structure of the website and the new structure. i find it more compelling to the eye the new structure / website design. they differ in the navigational. should i advise the designer to not to use drop down?

i am thinking that the main issue here is the drop down menu. the old website don't use drop down and the new site create drop down for navigation. so what do you think?

You're looking for a single point of failure, it's rarely that simple and not something you want to guess at. Start testing changes [as in measuring the impact with and without elements] but don't forget it's also what's on the page... A great design can actually increase bounce rate both by reducing the need to dive in and surfacing information.

[jorgepson]

You're looking for a single point of failure, it's rarely that simple and not something you want to guess at. Start testing changes [as in measuring the impact with and without elements] but don't forget it's also what's on the page... A great design can actually increase bounce rate both by reducing the need to dive in and surfacing information.

i guess you are right. i am more focused in depending the design. i guess website design is one angle in my investigation why the site's bounce rate is high. another factor that i am studying is the change of google's algorithm. is there any chance that the change of google's algo adds in the higher bounce rate of the site? could it be also a possible reason?

[Ted S]

i guess you are right. i am more focused in depending the design. i guess website design is one angle in my investigation why the site's bounce rate is high. another factor that i am studying is the change of google's algorithm. is there any chance that the change of google's algo adds in the higher bounce rate of the site? could it be also a possible reason?

Everything can contribute but it's unlikely that you're seeing a 20-point swing because of search unless your traffic from it has suddenly spiked. Isolate search visitors in your reporting and you'll know if they follow, or break, the trend.

Speaking of analytics, the reports you showed before have a single month at more than 2x the traffic of the last few months. What changed in marketing to produce such a sudden drop?

[jorgepson]

Everything can contribute but it's unlikely that you're seeing a 20-point swing because of search unless your traffic from it has suddenly spiked. Isolate search visitors in your reporting and you'll know if they follow, or break, the trend.

Speaking of analytics, the reports you showed before have a single month at more than 2x the traffic of the last few months. What changed in marketing to produce such a sudden drop?

according to the client they don't change their google campaign from the time our firm started redesigning their site. that's why the client thinks that because of the new design that made the bounce rate higher than the previous months.

does the google update from october to this recent months can also be a factor of the bounce rate?

[Ted S]

according to the client they don't change their google campaign from the time our firm started redesigning their site. that's why the client thinks that because of the new design that made the bounce rate higher than the previous months.

does the google update from october to this recent months can also be a factor of the bounce rate?

Google changes all the time but whether or not that had an impact is hardly something we can tell you from basic stats. You however can look into the traffic sources to see the changes in bounce rate by source and compare them... But again it's very unlikely that an organic search change would drive up bounce rates unless traffic massively spiked, which it did not.

Doing some napkin math they were puling in around 3770 visitors for the first 9 months of 2012 and 4250 for the last 4 months. It's notable but easily written off to the seasonal shift.

[jorgepson]

Google changes all the time but whether or not that had an impact is hardly something we can tell you from basic stats. You however can look into the traffic sources to see the changes in bounce rate by source and compare them... But again it's very unlikely that an organic search change would drive up bounce rates unless traffic massively spiked, which it did not.

Doing some napkin math they were puling in around 3770 visitors for the first 9 months of 2012 and 4250 for the last 4 months. It's notable but easily written off to the seasonal shift.

thanks ted S, i really appreciate your advises.

[Cusion1991]

One of the great way to improve the website's bounce rate is to remove distractions. Get rid of the automatic popup windows, scrolling text, spinning logos and Flash adverts where possible. Website visitors can be very impatient and would rather leave the website.