I Bounce You Bounce – Check your Rates!
For the people oblivious to the meaning of Bounce Rate: a visitor can bounce by closing an open window or tab, typing a new URL, clicking the “Back” button to leave the website or have a session timeout. The bounce rate for a blog is the number of site visitors who only visit 1 page of that blog per visit, divided by the total number of blog visits.
According to google.com analytics specialist Avinash Kaushik, a bounce rate over 50% is worrying, over 35% there is cause for concern and it is really hard to get your stats under 20%.
Like I mentioned in my post about EntreCard the other day, my BounceRate is in the high seventies so looking at Avinash´statement I should really break down and cry or better yet, decide whether that bounce rate really is all that important to me right now at this stage of my blog.
Having a high bounce rate (a percentage well over 60%) means one of two things (and sometimes a combination of both); either you are targeting or attracting the wrong visitors or your site is of poor design overall.
Although there is definitely a lot to tweak and improve on my design, I prefer thinking that my high bounce rate is actually caused by the use of EntreCard, getting anywhere between 100 and 300 visits through that system daily. And as we all know most droppers are bouncers, only looking for the widget to drop and move on to the next one.
Am I going to break down and cry? Well of course not! I actually do appreciate all the traffic I am receiving, it is driving Alexia ranking up (you just never know when that could be useful, plus it is getting personal now, wanting to reach 100,000 within 3 months of starting this blog) plus I notice more and more people are coming back, leaving comments and start participating.
Am I truly satisfied? Well of course not!
There is always room for improvement, especially when only just starting out. So a few weeks ago I signed up for Google Analytics to be able to have a closer look at where all these wonderful readers are coming from.
By the way, if you have been struggling to add the code to your blog in order to have the tracking process started, I recommend you to use the Google Analyticator plugin for WP, allowing you to add the tracking code without having to change anything in your core code.
I must admit, I really don’t like touching core codes (especially not late in the evening when running a high risk of screwing up the whole system) and I have been putting off signing up for google analytics for too long, but with that plugin it is a real breeze to set up and as much as I don’t want to depend on Google, the Analytics rock!
Now is as good a time as any to actually start focussing on lowering that bounce rate while not going down on traffic, but since I really don´t want to go cold turkey on EntreCard I will keep using it and apart from that I will be spending quite some time over the next weeks on building more backlinks and of course I will be sharing my lists with you guys, so stay tuned for that!
I am curious though, care to share your bounce rate and steps on how to improve, or do you really just don´t care about stats and ranks?Â
Tagged with: bounce rates • google analytics • Plugins
Filed under: Blogging • Plugins • Recommendation • Traffic
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Different kinds of traffic has different bounce rates. I have a client that has a high bounce rate from Google search. Looking at the search query and the page they land on, it is likely that the people found exactly what they were looking for and did not need to visit another page. Entrecard traffic has a high bounce rate, part of the type of system. They come drop and run. Pretty much the same with StumbleUpon. It also depends on the how many regular visitors you get. A new blog will have a high bounce rate, an older more established blog with many regular readers, less so. It can be a very subjective number like most statistics IMHO.
Lee’s last blog post..RSS – What, Where, Why and How
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Mirjam Reply:
March 27th, 2008 at 2:26 am
Thanks Lee, for sharing your point of view
I really appreciate that!
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Alex at Net-Entrepreneur.com Reply:
March 28th, 2008 at 5:58 am
Hi Mirjam,
High bounce rate is not necessarily bad. If you allow full articles on the front page, for example, the bounce rate will be much higher than at a blog that shows summaries.
It is impossible to compare two blogs’ bounce rates without brining them to a common denominator. And you and I don’t know the formula for that.
So, the bounce rate indicator is a very approximate tool to measure what is going on YOUR blog, not for benchmarking.
Cheers,
Alex
Alex at Net-Entrepreneur.com’s last blog post..The 3 Things That Increased My Productivity
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Mirjam Reply:
March 28th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Hey Alex
I am coming to that same conclusion, thanks for your comment
I really don’t care about the bounce rate (in regards to my blog.)
What do we want when running a blog? Readers coming back again and again, preferably on a regular, perhaps daily basis.
Now, imagine they come back on a regular, perhaps daily basis… would it make sense for these folks to browse the archives?
Normally not, I’d say.
Marcus Hochstadt’s last blog post..Larry Brauner Conference Call
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Mirjam Reply:
March 27th, 2008 at 2:27 am
I guess you are right there, never thought of it in that perspective, so thanks for enlightening me
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My bounce rate has been pretty high according to google.. around 70%. I’m not really concerned about it right now.
I get about 200-250 visits from entrecard daily and these are either drop and run or they visit the first couple of posts which happen to be on my main page.
The majority of my other daily visitors come directly for a specific post – whether they find me through a search engine search, or a direct link has been added to a forum… but they get the info they need and bounce right on out.
As I said, for me, right now, that’s ok.. over time, I’m sure I’ll see a small change.. but since my site covers many topics and is just a catch-all blog, I don’t expect many visitors to stick around too long.
Judi’s last blog post..What is a Mandala?
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Mirjam Reply:
March 27th, 2008 at 2:29 am
Hi Judi, good to see you over here
very clarifying comment, thank you for that!
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I think it’s different for blogs when it comes to bounce rate, especially since every blog is set up differently. I read about the 50% thing is worrying a while back too but when it comes to blogs, it’s different especially when people come usually to read the first article on your homepage.
I think most bloggers I know have a bounce rate anywhere from 30s to 70s. Though, the higher it is, the harder time you’ll have with advertisers. But I mentioned this in my Entrecard post and how people wouldn’t have traffic because of it… if you think your bounce rate is high with them, mine was over 90%!!! I took a screenshot on that post for everyone to see too!
As for advice, there are plenty of things you can do. Matter of fact, I should probably write an entire post on this lol.
And I was going to say something else but I got caught up in the whole Entrecard speech that I forgot lol
Jay
Jay’s last blog post..Is it a Coincidence my Stats Gotten Better Since Switching to WP?
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Mirjam Reply:
March 27th, 2008 at 2:30 am
and I am sure I will read that post
Thanks for dropping in 
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When I first started, back on Blogger, my bounce rate was very high; nearly 100%. This was the days of Beta Blogger, not old Blogger, and I couldn’t cut my articles with a “Read more”. Thus I typically had no idea whether people were just visiting or actually reading.
On Wordpress, as I started building up more content that was useful to other people—and, eventually, unique—my bounce rate went down. Plus I started cutting my articles on the front page, and that helped me figure out the kind of openings that encouraged people to “Read more” (and made my front page load much faster; I write some fairly long, involved articles).
When I started to add cross-referencing plugins to my Wordpress install—impossible on Blogger—my bounce rate went down even further, down to 50%. Such plugins included “Related posts” and “Most popular posts” (I use the version that ties in with the Mint tracker, as this allows for post popularity to move over a 7 day window, rather than just be a perpetual popularity).
These days, my bounce rate is still high (right now it’s around 70%, after the Stumble traffic last week), but I still observe, more often, people visiting multiple pages on the site. It’s a combination of having content people want to read, and making it easier for them to find it.
I am particularly tickled when I find that someone has, say, browsed 15 pages or so in a day.
Arachne Jericho’s last blog post..Getting the Best Out of Entrecard: 5 Benefits I Reaped Beyond Hits or Ads
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Mirjam Reply:
March 27th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Hi Arachne:)
Thanks for sharing your experience, very interesting and useful! I can imagine you´re tickled to see somebody has been spending so much time on your blog, browsing through that many pages, but then again, I can completely understand they do! I spent quite some time on your blog yesterday aswell and there are some really great posts!
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I have a question about bounce rate.
I have 2 sites, one have 60% + bounce rate, other below 30%.
I earn more from the one with 60%+ bounce rate.
So my question, incase I visitors comes from search engine, and on the very first page, the user click on a ad. So he will be redirected to some other site as he clicked on a ad.
So, in above case, the bounce rate is 100% ?
As the user left the site on first page page ?
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Mirjam Reply:
March 28th, 2008 at 11:25 am
hi Angilina,
for as far as I know, yes, in case a visitor leaves your site from the page they entered by clicking an ad, bounce rate for that visitor is 100%
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put a jump in your posts and see if the bounce rate goes down. If you give the whole post on the main page, and the person already read the other posts, where are they gonna go? Like the other guy up above said. Regulars will only read the new posts, so make them click!
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Mirjam Reply:
March 28th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Hi Acadia,
Call me traditional but I prefer offering the full post without having them click in order to read the whole thing
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Shaun Reply:
March 28th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Hi Mirjam, I must say I agree with Acadia. If they really want to read, they will click the “read more” or whatever one has. There is also another advantage to this approach and that is speed. A site with “read more” links on posts usually loads faster and saves on bandwidth. Just my 2 cents worth.
Shaun’s last blog post..For the Boys and girls
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Mirjam Reply:
March 28th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Thanks for your 2 cents Shaun
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My bounce rate is about 68% which is so high because of Entrecard, but I didn’t start using Google Analytics until after Entrecard, so it’s hard to tell. It really doesn’t matter that much to me when I know the reason.
But if I narrow it down to search engine hits, it goes up to 60% with an average of 2-1/2 minutes per visit.
I guess the bounce rate is still high. Ahh, screw it. LOL
Stephan Miller’s last blog post..Lessons Learned at Low Paying Jobs
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Mirjam Reply:
March 28th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Haha Stephan
It is just how you look at things
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The first thing I’d like to do is thank you. I’ve read many a post on Google Analytics, but I don’t recall anyone pointing to that plugin; which I promptly grabbed.
As for Entrecard bounce rate, I haven’t heard many solutions other then maybe placing the card between the middle and end of the blog to force people to scroll and hopefully read along the way.
Overall though, I think it comes down to atractive (non-misleading) titles and good quality content. Along with as others have stated, using summaries and having a good “looking” blog.
People are busy. They WILL scroll the front page, but if they don’t like, they will not go to categories for more.
Dennis Edell’s last blog post..Never Stop “Pushing†Your Business Forward
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Mirjam Reply:
March 31st, 2008 at 9:14 am
Hi Dennis, you are welcome, I am glad I found that plugin making it so much easier to add analytics without having to worry about coding, so I passed it on to my readers
As for the Entrecard, I don´t think it will make any difference, putting your widget lower. If somebody comes to your blog because of entrecard, most of the time they just want the click and won´t read through your post just like that. The title might just catch their attention enough to read it, which can also happen when having it higher up.
Like you say, people can´t be forced to read nor be forced to like your blog, instead you have to make sure yourself to catch their attention in a few seconds time span
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For bounce rate metrics try http://www.pagealizer.com/
Pagealizer helps site owners get insight on how powerful their site content is. Pagealizer shows you in great detail how long people stay on your page (effective bounce rate), how far they scrolled down the page and where they clicked. Check us out
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Mirjam Reply:
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:45 pm
will certainly have a look at your tool, thanks for the mention
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