Bounce Back from High Bounce Rates

What is Bounce Rate?

Avinash Kaushik, author of Web Analytics 2.0, refers to bounce rate as the “sexiest web metric ever!” (Kaushik, 50). A bold title to bestow one metric over other important metrics such as unique visitors, page referrers, and others. The bounce rate is defined as “the percentage of sessions on your website with only one page view” (Kaushik, 50). For most websites the goal is not for a consumer to visit a single page and move on to the next best site on the web, but instead be so intrigued that they interact and browse the website in search of more valuable content.

Leaving So Soon?


According to Inc., “As a rule of thumb, a 50 percent bounce rate is average. If you surpass 60 percent, you should be concerned. If you're in excess of 80 percent, you've got a major problem” (Quinn, 2011). Why do visitors leave after just one page view, and how can we keep this from happening? There are several reasons that might cause a visitor to leave and depending on that reason there are solutions available to improve and optimize your website.


Treat the Problem, Not The Symptoms

Before, you can lower your bounce rate you need to understand the reasons that a visitor might be leaving a website. Reasons might include poor website design, usability problems, pop-ups, bad content, outbound links, or website format, such as a blog. Search engine ranking and poor website optimization may also affect the bounce rate; for example if a website ranks high for certain keywords but is not relevant to the users needs this may cause a user to leave a site without viewing other pages. Google also suggests that if you are experiencing a high bounce rate on multiple pages that it might be a technical error and you will want to verify the tracking code on your website (“High Bounce Rate”, n.d.).


Today’s Internet users have many options to browse the Internet. It is important to ensure that your website works well in the various browsers available including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and others. If the website does not perform well in one browser or another it may negatively affect your bounce rate.


Remember sometimes simple is better, and this applies to web design as well. Avoid using large Flash files or images that load slowly and may frustrate users who impatiently wait for them to load. Also, assess the various points of entry to your website and which are working better than others. Consider why by asking “Who is coming to the page? Why are they coming here? What is it that they probably want to do?” (Quinn, 2012). 


Direct users to the information they are looking for and don’t make them dig for it, this will cause users to become annoyed and search elsewhere. Instead connect users to content that they might also find interesting. Marketing software company, HubSpot’s blog is a good example of this. They are successful in keeping readers engaged by embedding links within their blogs that connect readers to other related content to keep them on their website, and discovering new content. As a frequent reader of the blog, I often find myself clicking to two or three different pages before signing off. 


To learn more view a video of author, Avinash Kaushik explaining bounce rate: http://youtu.be/ppgfjo6IIf4

References

Bounce Rate Demystified. (n.d.). The @KISSmetrics Marketing Blog. Retrieved November 5, 2012, from http://blog.kissmetrics.com/bounce-rate/

Quinn, M. (2011, January 31). How to Reduce Your Website’s Bounce Rate.Inc.com. Retrieved November 5, 2012, from http://www.inc.com/guides/2011/01/how-to-reduce-your-website-bounce-rate.html

High Bounce Rate - Analytics Help. (n.d.).Google Help. Retrieved November 5, 2012, from http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1009409

Think Big Picture

There is a wealth of information readily available for marketers online. Google Analytics offers real time data, along with social media sites like Facebook that can track every detail of the visitor’s online experience. With so much information available across so many different platforms it can be easy to get lost in the metrics. Page views, unique visitors, new visitors, returning visitors, conversation rate, page referrer, and the list goes on and on. There are metrics measuring metrics, so where does one begin?

First decide what is important. Don’t get lost in all the numbers and percentages, instead start planning with the end in mind. Decide what is important and what the goal is for your consumers to gain from their experience on your site and then choose the metrics that best measure the success, or failures, based on those goals. Case in point, if you are a blogger, looking at the bounce rate for your blog might not be useful to you if your blog scrolls through multiple posts with little need for the visitor to click around. A more useful metric to consider might be visit duration, or returning visitors to learn how long readers stay on the website and whether they choose to come back.

Author of Web Analytics 2.0, Avinash Kaushik suggest asking yourself four simple questions to gain a macro view of the data (70). First, “How many visitors are coming to my website?” (Kaushik, 71). Consider unique visitors, versus total visitors, or how many people actually visited the website one time, and how many came back and visited the page multiple times. Look at trends and patterns over periods of time and also specific to marketing campaigns like a newsletter or direct mailer. If people aren’t visiting your website there is not much to measure beyond that. Step one is crucial! 

The second questions is “Where are Visitors coming from?” (Kaushik, 71). This the equivalent to asking your customers “how did you hear about us?” Referring URLs can share where your visitors are coming from. Is it from search engines or direct traffic such as an email campaign? If they are coming from search engines Google Analytics can provide the search keywords a visitor used to find your website. By using this information to optimize your website you can improve your search engine result pages rankings, and increase the likely hood that others consumers will find your website. 

The third question, goes back to the idea of – planning with the end in mind – “what do I want Visitors to do on the website?” (Kaushik, 72). Establish what goals you have for your consumers, whether it is to buy a product or subscribe to an e-newsletter, write down your goals. The last and probably most important question is, “What are Visitors actually doing?” (Kaushik, 72 - 73). This may seem obvious but at times we, as marketers, can get so caught up in what we want our visitors to do on our website that we miss out on what they are actually doing which can lead to opportunities for growth and improvement in new or unexpected areas. Look at where visitors are entering your website. Often we believe (or hope) it is our homepage, and we invest a great deal of time and energy into “prettying” it up, when in reality they may be entering directly form a search engine link and never even see your homepage. Look at the most view pages and assess patterns and trends. What is it that is making these pages more successful than others? Find commonalities and repeat them across your website, particularly on underperforming pages.

Revisit these questions often, as consumers needs and wants change and so to will your website. Keep a few baseline metrics in mind and comparing those metrics over time to measure results. Test new ideas and use those same few metrics to determine the effectiveness. But most importantly, do not drown in the details. It is easy to do so but keep your end goals in mind and use the metrics that matter most to you and your business.

References

Kaushik, A. (2010). Web analytics 2.0: the art of online accountability & science of customer centricity. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley.