Bounce Rate is probably one of the more easily understandable metrics from this week's Lesson in IMC 642, Web Metrics & CEO: Basic Web Analytics. It's defined by KissMetrics as "the percentage of visitors who come to your website and leave without viewing any other pages on your website" (Hines, KissMetrics.com). I'm familiar with this from my work as the City of Morgantown's website manager, but since I'm currently job searching, I'm going to use my website susansullivancincinnati.weebly.com as my example for the week.
Logging into Google Analytics, I know already that I can find a list of my top performing pages under Behavior>Site Content>Content Drilldown> Pages.
Out of the 190 views over the last month, 84 have been for my home page. It has a bounce rate higher than the entire site average: 84.5%. So, I'm gaining from this that people who find my page aren't actually looking specifically for it (Especially since 27 of them are from Brazil...)
Of those 15.5% of people who seem to have found the right page, it looks like the majority actually go to Her Mission next (as seen in the User Flow under Audience), and then onto Her Experience. Six of those 15% of visitors go onto Her Work next. So, I know at least 7% of people are there to really dig into my page and discover who I am and what I'm looking to accomplish. However, the next highest visited page is Her Experience. The bounce rate on this page is VERY low -about 25% - but even Her Mission has a 0% bounce rate!
The worst bounce rate, however, exists on my blog page (100%). What does this mean, is it a bad thing, and what can I do to improve it?
KissMetrics suggests in its article about bounce rate that this aggregate metric, a measure of engagement (Reed College of Media, 2014), that bounce rate itsn't always a bad thing. If there's a call to action on the page, such as a phone number, a form that redirects to an off-site page, or links to a store on eBay or Etsy, then that's worth taking into consideration. However, the only calls to action I have are to follow me on social media, and those are available on every page. Could this contribute?
I can check into my traffic and see what referrers are bringing me the best traffic and the lowest bounce rates to my highest performing pages, including the Her Blog page.
100% of the visits from the first referral page are bounces. Not certain it's a legitimate referral page. However, organic searches with a 0% bounce rate are from Bing, duckduckgo (?!?!)., and Yahoo. leading me to believe the people who used those search engines really were looking for me.
I use BrandYourself.com as an SEO tool to help me manage where my websites show up in search engines, so this might have helped contribute to the success I'm having in Bing and Yahoo.
Google Analytics can also show me what people searched for to find me in these search engines.
It looks like I get the smallest bounce rates from fellow IMC students and people interested in my background at WBOY. Although it's just a session apiece, at least that gives me some insight into what kinds of people are visiting my page!
I hate that I can't tell anything about the biggest referral search keywords. (Not provided) doesn't help a whole lot, especially since this makes up 80% of my keyword visits.
To improve my bounce rate, there are a few things I can do. KissMetrics says I should integrate lihnks to my pages in other pages I already have - for instance, in my Her Mission page, include links to my content, or in my blog posts, include links to Her Experience that create a bigger chance that visitors will see more than just one page.
Second, I can add links to my highest performing blog posts to the sidebar, like to my final projects, for example. Four people visited my page looking for an "integrated marketing communications plan for Kmart." It's worth putting on the Blog Page sidebar to draw people to other pages.
Also, I can improve my content. Maybe I need to take time to upgrade my page to more of a job search tense than a "this is what I do for the City" standpoint. Make it more of a resume page with a Her Studies or Her Education page instead of just a page titled Blog. This makes visitors aware that I'm currently learning.
My bounce rate research shows me that I need more interactivity in my pages, and to highlight my most popular pages. I'm also going to look at my visit duration this week for class to see what this says about my website and what I can do to improve my visit duration time.
I use BrandYourself.com as an SEO tool to help me manage where my websites show up in search engines, so this might have helped contribute to the success I'm having in Bing and Yahoo.
Google Analytics can also show me what people searched for to find me in these search engines.
It looks like I get the smallest bounce rates from fellow IMC students and people interested in my background at WBOY. Although it's just a session apiece, at least that gives me some insight into what kinds of people are visiting my page!
I hate that I can't tell anything about the biggest referral search keywords. (Not provided) doesn't help a whole lot, especially since this makes up 80% of my keyword visits.
To improve my bounce rate, there are a few things I can do. KissMetrics says I should integrate lihnks to my pages in other pages I already have - for instance, in my Her Mission page, include links to my content, or in my blog posts, include links to Her Experience that create a bigger chance that visitors will see more than just one page.
Second, I can add links to my highest performing blog posts to the sidebar, like to my final projects, for example. Four people visited my page looking for an "integrated marketing communications plan for Kmart." It's worth putting on the Blog Page sidebar to draw people to other pages.
Also, I can improve my content. Maybe I need to take time to upgrade my page to more of a job search tense than a "this is what I do for the City" standpoint. Make it more of a resume page with a Her Studies or Her Education page instead of just a page titled Blog. This makes visitors aware that I'm currently learning.
My bounce rate research shows me that I need more interactivity in my pages, and to highlight my most popular pages. I'm also going to look at my visit duration this week for class to see what this says about my website and what I can do to improve my visit duration time.
Hines, K. (2014). What you can learn from bounce rate and how to improve it. KissMetrics.com. Retrieved November 3, 2014, from https://blog.kissmetrics.com/what-you-can-learn-from-bounce-rate-how-to-improve-it/.
Reed College of Media. (20 Oct 2014). IMC 642, Lesson 2: Basic Web Analtytics. Learn.WVU.edu. Retrieved November 3, 2014, from https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_group=courses&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2FdisplayLearningUnit%3Fcourse_id%3D_20666_1%26content_id%3D_1178117_1%26framesetWrapped%3Dtrue.
Blogging is such a tough nut to crack! Even after a term project putting together a blog, I still feel overwhelmed building an audience & driving real traffic!
ReplyDelete