Bounce Rate is an interesting engagement metric because
there is a little controversy over whether or not it is important to
watch.
Google Analytics describes bounce rate as the “the
percentage of single-page sessions (i.e. sessions in which the person left your
site from the entrance page without interacting with the page).”
Kissmetrics created this graphic to show how GA measures
bounce rate. Bounce rate is measured by taking the total number of single page
visits divided by the total number of entries to a page. As you can see, it
notes that Google takes bounce rate into account when determining page rank for
your website.
From what I can tell, a high bounce
rate is considered a negative. If someone lands on a page on your website and
immediately wants to leave you’ve done something wrong. This could be bad page
design, slow loading time, or a complete lack of relevant info for the user (Google) . As analytics expert
Avinash Kaushik describes it, “I came, I puked, I left (Kaushik, 2010) .”
However, we may need to consider that the reason someone
left a page soon after they arrived is that they found what they came for. For
instance store hours, a contact phone number, or an address.
Personally, I can say that I can
see how my company website would have issues with high bounce rate because of
the way it is set up. Having multiple locations in different cities we offer
landing pages for each, so with a specific Google search of “CompleteCare
Wildwood hours” you will pull up these results:
Clicking on the main link will
take you to the Wildwood landing page and reveal hours, address, fax number,
and more. If this is what you are looking for, you don’t have to go any further
and you can leave the site. In our case, if a customer finds the site and
visits a location we have met the intended goal of our page.
Aside from the reason I noted above,
there are other explanations for why bounce rate might be higher for some sites
and they aren’t all bad. Sites with blog posts (people read one page and move
on), those that see a lot of referral traffic from other places like Twitter
(people looking for small amounts of content only), and those who get a lot of
mobile hits (especially for sites that aren’t mobile optimized) may all see
higher bounce rates.
If bounce rate has left you
feeling bad about your site, there are some other analytics that might help you
get a better picture for what is really happening when someone visits. Try
checking out:
Average time spent on a page – are visitors taking time to take in
content from your page once they arrive?
Landing pages – are people bouncing from blog posts or
informational landing pages like the one above, if so you might not have an
issue. If they are jumping ship after visiting your homepage it might be
something to address (Vonsydow, 2014) .
Of course, if you just can’t get
over having a site with a high bounce rate there are ways to get the number
lower. Here are a few ideas that seem fairly easy to implement:
·
- Sart by evaluating where people are bouncing and why. Is your site loading too slowly? Do your homepages and landing pages look professional and representative of your message or are they sloppy and disheveled leaving users running from the mess?
- Other basic solutions may be adding more links to pages and in your content. For instance, we are currently working on a website redesign for the company and we will incorporate buttons on each page that meet the goals we want to a visit; schedule an appointment, visit the patient portal, etc.
- Improving bounce rate may also be possible by adding more information about a product or service; customer testimonials, photos or videos of people using the product, guides to usage, and more.
- You can also incorporate content on your sidebars to peak reader interest and have them dive deeper. Maybe a section about your business or links to blog articles similar to the current post.
- If bounce rate and time spent on the page are
both off, content likely needs to be improved. Compare content on poorly performing
pages with those that do well and see what can be done better. Do you need more
pictures, video content, or exciting topics
Bounce rate may not be important
to everyone, but one thing it does is remind us all is to take an extra look at
our pages and determine if they could be better and how. What things can we do
to make people want to go further, stay longer, and complete the goals we set
out for them.
References:
Coren, Y. (n.d.). Google Analytics Bounce Rate
(actually) Demystified. Retrieved January 24, 2016, from Analytcs Ninja:
http://www.analytics-ninja.com/blog/2012/06/google-analytics-bounce-rate-demystified.html
Google. (n.d.). Google Support. Retrieved
January 23, 2016, from Bounce Rate:
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1009409?hl=en
Kaushik, A. (2010). Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of
Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity. Indianapolis:
Wiley.
Kissmetrics. (2011). What You Can Learn from Bounce
Rate & How to Improve It. Retrieved January 24, 2016, from Kissmetrics
Blog:
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/what-you-can-learn-from-bounce-rate-how-to-improve-it/
Vonsydow, E. (2014, March 31). Why Bounce Rate
Isn’t The End All. Retrieved January 24, 2016, from Bop Design:
https://www.bopdesign.com/bop-blog/2014/03/bounce-rate-isnt-end/
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