Your bounce rate is higher than you expected, or it has suddenly changed. What’s going on? First, think about why we look at bounce rate to begin with. For many websites, high user interaction is a measure of success. If a visitor comes to your website, sticks around to read your content and visits many pages, this is a good sign. They’re more likely to buy something, click an ad or call you. If someone arrives at your site then immediately leaves, that’s usually not good. A bounce is defined as a visit to only one page. So if your bounce rate is 50%, half of your visitors left after viewing only one page.

You need to determine why your bounce rate is what it is. Then you can decide what to do about it, if anything. Here are some places to start your investigation.

– Check to see if all pages have the same Analytics code. If the user navigates through a page that doesn’t have the code, it would look to Analytics like two separate shorter visits.

– Check the top landing pages. Are they inviting and informative? Do they match with what the user was looking for? For example, if they searched on your business name and landed on your links page, they might be more likely to bounce.

– Compare bounce rates on different traffic mediums and sources. Sources like Facebook or a news story will probably be lower quality than those from organic search or a related directory. Sometimes visits are tagged as Direct because Google doesn’t have enough info to properly classify them. Look at the landing pages for direct traffic. It’s doubtful that a lot of visitors will type in a long complicated url.

– The user may have gotten the answer they wanted from a single page. If they came to see a video, and landed on the page with the video, they probably didn’t need to visit another page. If they searched with a keyword of “(Business Name) phone number” and your phone number is readily available on your homepage, maybe that’s all they needed.

– Check the top landing pages for internal and external links. Internal links and nav bars will encourage users to visit other pages in your site. External links encourage them to leave.

– Check the geographic location of visitors who bounced. If you have a brick and mortar business, traffic from your geographic location is likely to convert. If you have a lot of traffic from another country, you might want to figure out why.

Once you have a better idea of what’s causing your bounce rate, you can decide whether changes are necessary. If it’s an error in the Analytics code or in the way visits are being counted, you should get that corrected. If it’s about the way visitors use your website, you might need to re-evaluate what you want them to do. For some websites, short visits are okay. Lastly, if a high bounce rate leads to believe that you need to change your website to increase your conversion rate, then let the work begin!

Author Bio: Written by Hannah Valez Internet Advertising Services Online Advertising Services Advertising Agencies

Category: Internet
Keywords: bounce rate, high bounce rate, troubleshoot bounce rate, analytics bounce rate