8 Bounce Rate Killers
A Quick analysis of your web network with Google Analytics technology using the “Bounce Rate” metric.
The Dreaded Bounce Rate
This is such a simple yet powerful marketing metric found in Google Analytics because it directly relates to the intention of your users as they land on your web pages. In the search engine optimization rumor mill, bounce rate is considered to be a part of ranking in the natural search engine placements. Search engines have the ability to determine the bounce rate of visitors based on the keywords they enter prior to landing on your web pages. If the bounce rate remains consistently high for certain keywords a search engine may decide to distribute those visitors to other similar web sites in an attempt to create a more engaging environment.
It is not likely a search engine will reward a web site that consistently has a high bounce rate with a better ranking! If you are really worried about common causes for high bounce rates try using another free Google tool called speed tracer. With this tool you can quickly test the time load and performance of each webpage. Page load times can often be a large contributing factor to a high bounce rate.
Top Exit Pages
In your report data found in the Google Analytics interface you can also study the pages people are leaving your site on with a quick bounce analysis. There are pages that will make sense for a visitor to exit such as goal pages. However, there may be other pages that should not be high exit pages that are. In these cases it is worth investigating why.
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Keywords & Conversion
This is another area that can be quite costly when the bounce rate is high. If you are paying for your traffic through a pay per click advertising program like Google AdWords you will want to pay very close attention to the bounce rate. Web site visitors that have used certain keywords with click density high on particular ads is a good sign. You may even want to invest time or money into multivariate testing.
The same methodology can apply when a web site visitor enters using a specific keyword from the organic search channel. What page do they land on and what is the bounce rate? You may learn that it is time to refine the context of your content message/ design.
Google Web Analytics Screen Shot
In the screenshot above I see the second landing page from my search engine marketing efforts as the most engaging landing page by average time on site, lowest bounce rate and one of the highest pages per visit values.
Tips for Lowering the Bounce Rate
- Display clearly labeled internal links to other related pages
- Publish short and engaging stories with plenty of relevant links to other web pages on your site
- Plan good website architecture – the way a human would think…one thing leads to another
- Design ways for a visitor to easily explore your website in greater detail
- Make every page a part of your sales funnel process
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Read this article from Avinash Kaushik
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Good Bounce Rate Blogging Circumstances
One good example of a low bounce rate referring source of traffic is niche based blogs. If someone clicks of link while visiting a niche blog they will likely be more engaged with the content they are greeted by. For the most part, if the message in mind was clear from the start to the finish & visitor is motivated to take action – your bounce rate is low. Providing plenty of relevant links, well displayed in every web page will also result in a more favorable bounce rate. Assigning hyperlinks to the content (anchor text) will result in higher engagement and potentially better pay per click advertising results. Not to mention a good way to measure search engine optimization results. Yes, I do believe search engine placements and SEO are connected to the bounce rate.
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