Is Bounce Rate a Blog Disease?
I’ve always said that your blog’s statistics are a very good source of information for optimization, be it search engine optimization or simply design and usability improvements.
One of the most important indices your stats will measure is the bounce rate. Of course, some would say that the number of unique visitors or the number of page views are very – if not most – important, but I dare disagree for a simple reason: unique visitors and page views are fairly easy to get (buy) or manipulate (exchange).
That’s why I put my money on the bounce rate, but, before I continue, let’s see what is the bounce rate.
Bounce Rate Definition
This is what the all-knowing Wikipedia tells us about bounce rates:
A bounce occurs when a web site visitor leaves a page or a site without visiting any other pages before a specified session-timeout occurs.
In other words, the bounce rate is the percentage of a page’s visitors that did not take any further action, transforming the entry page into an exit page. For that to occur, visitors would need to either close the browser window/tab, hit the “Back” button, type a new URL or simply wait until the current session expires.
So, basically, the way you optimize your landing page (entry page) will most likely influence your bounce rate.
The Average Bounce Rate
If we were to take as granted what Google’s Analytics Specialist Avinash Kaushik says, an acceptable bounce rate could vary anywhere between 20% and 50%, while anything above 50% should be worrying. While this sounds OK in theory, it’s not applicable in every case.
Let’s take those famous landing pages built especially to sell a product. How many people out of all page visitors are likely to buy the product? Most times only a small percentage. How many of these pages sell the product through their own website so that once the visitor clicks the “Buy” button, he won’t navigate away to an online shop or affiliate account?
Also, as you can easily see for yourself, blogs tend to have high bounce rates and that is explainable.
First of all, blogs are mostly informational websites with tons of content. We know that because of their nature, search engines have developed an affinity towards blogs, that being the reason we find a lot of blogs in search results pages.
Sometimes, the information returned in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) is not exactly what the user expects to find, meaning that a user will click on a link, visit the web page, not find the desired information and simply close the tab or hit the “Back” button to continue looking through the search results. This leads to a bounce rate increment.
This situation could be prevented through better on page SEO and especially keyword optimization.
Also, visitors coming from search engines are very targeted, meaning they know what they are looking for, and once they’ve found it, they are not as likely to continue browsing for other things, unless your blog is really good (from design to topics and writing style).
RSS subscribers and loyal readers also contribute to a blog’s high bounce rate. That sounds crazy, right? We all want more subscribers and readers. Well, it’s not crazy. By being a loyal reader or a RSS subscriber means that you are up to date with every new blog post so each visit will be generated by these new posts. These posts will be entry pages as well as exit pages, since visitors are most likely familiar with the rest of the content.
If subscribers are the reason behind your high bounce rate what can you do? You could shut down your feeds. I’m just joking, no need for drastic measures. Instead you could consider revising your writing style to a more conversational one. Start writing more “for the people”. Engage your readers. Make them want to post comments and by doing so, automatically take an action on your blog and lowering the bounce rate.
If High Bounce Rates Are Natural…
Then why are they so important? Again, we’re talking strictly about blogs. An online shop or a portal with a bounce rate of 70-80% is extremely bad.
By studying our blogs’ statistics we can find out which pages and keywords are most efficient, and by doing so, find a pattern for a better optimization.
Consider this. Blogsessive is mostly about “blogging tips”. Sure, each article debates a more specific topic, but those topics can be included in the big “blogging tips” area. So, if Blogsessive would have a high bounce rate for the “blogging tips” keyword that would be reason for concerns, because people interested in tips should basically browse more pages in search for more general information, unlike those searching for a specific situation or advice.
So, to answer the question in this post’s title: No, a higher bounce rate on your blog is not necessarily bad, but it’s definitely an indicator for further improvements.
How to Improve the Bounce Rate
If you’re not satisfied with what your stats are showing, here are some tips to help you improve your blog’s pages’ and overall bounce rate:
- Encourage communication;
- Use “Call for action” phrases;
- Link between your own articles as reference;
- Do on page SEO (URL, title and keyword optimization);
- Suggest readers similar or other interesting posts;
- Provide a popular posts list;
- Use interactive elements that would require users to take a small action, such as polls;
- Find your blog’s “pause points” (places where users will spend more time) and insert actions in those points;
- If you’re out-linking excessively, try to reduce the number of outgoing links;
- Reconsider your blog’s navigation and overall theme design that could generate usability issues.
Over to you
Do you have a high or a low bounce rate? How has the bounce rate affected your blog? What method(s) did you find most efficient to reduce the bounce rate?
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Hi Alex,
My bounce rates are somewhere around 50% on my blogs. The PR and Marketing blogs has higher rates, while the travel blog has lower ones. The travel blog is however newer and readers are just discovering it now, they aren’t already familiar with the content. I have to admit I haven’t worked much on improving bounce rates, although I should
All the best from my very sunny holiday,
Alina
Really great and informative article. I was very confused about bouncing rate when I started blogging. I reduced bouncing rate on my blog from around 90% to around 50% by redesigning sidebar (added “best of” list and recent posts), by adding related post section under each post, by calling people to leave comments and so on.
If that is your bounce rate, i recommend you erase the “Recommended Reading on Blogsessive” from your main page, and put it somewhere in single.php right before “More Blogsessive Content”, in my opinion when somebody enters a site, they would like to see real content, not just links, and seeing that your header occupies a lot of space, well maby some people just exit really really fast. This what i would recommend you.
@Alina: Enjoy your vacation!
@stefan: That’s not Blogsessive’s bounce rate, and even so, that sample shows very good improvement in a short period.
Anyway, I’m in the process of reconsidering a few things in Blogsessive’s design.
if you want to learn more about ur bounce rate take a look at http://www.pagealizer.com
they have nice bounce charts
I feel kind of bad now for contributing to your bounce rate. Back in maybe early August or late July, I would check this site like five times a day, and just leave since there was nothing to read…
Gah, way to go. Now I feel guilty.
In all seriousness, I’m not concerned about my stats. I blog for myself as a way to see how my writing evolves, how my interests change, and what I care about from time to time. I also do productivity tips because I enjoy learning them and this is one way to remember them, and I figure if somebody’s interested, it’s nice for them to have some advice.
@Michael:
No reason to “feel guilty”. Nice to have you back! Indeed, not everyone puts a lot of weight on their stats, especially when their blog is more of a diary, even if a public one.
I just came across this article while doing some research on “Bounce Rate”, which I didn’t really understand. Thanks, it has been a great help. I tend not to worry too much about my stats, but it began to annoy me that I didn’t really understand what one of them was telling me. Hopefully I understand a bit more now.
And the rest of your blog looks pretty helpful too. Just what I need, a source of good help with the subject area of blogging.
Paul, welcome to Blogsessive and thank you for your kind words! I’m glad that this article helped you better understand your stats.
Hi there. This is the first time that I’ve visited this blog.
I was surprised when I checked the stats for my new internet marketing blog. Its at 2%! Is it good? Or is it very bad? I’d love to know more about it.
my personal development website has a bounce rate of 1.8 percent, honestly i find it weird to have such a low number even though i have 7 pitch pages spread out into the websiet!
Good article but I’m gonna throw this out there: Could it be that the search engines are still pretty terrible at sending visitors to the right sites? I know that may be blasphemy to Google fanboys and girls but let’s say the internet-wide bounce rate is somewhere between 40-50% – that means search engines barely send people to the right site every other time!
I’ll do my part to try to improve my bounce rate but I hope the search engines are doing their part as well – half the visits that should be coming to my site are going to the wrong site! (think about that one…)
my personal development website has a bounce rate of 1.8 percent, honestly i find it weird to have such a low number even though i have 7 pitch pages spread out into the websiet
Yeah bounce rates are very subjective. A shopping site should have a lower bounce rate that say a highly topic specific blog. But that still depends. A high bounce rate could mean that most people find exactly what they are looking for, are happy, then leave (or buy). My fatherhood blog has a really high bounce rate, but I can tell by my stats that they are also reading the entire post ( average time spent per page is quite high). So they are clearly finding exactly what they want and then leaving which is fine considering my two most poplar posts are about “potty training”, and “how to get more sex from your wife”. Chances are if that’s what you’re looking for, you’re probably not too interested in the post about “raising vegetarian children” or “getting a vasectomy”.
Great read and some valuable suggestions. I’ve reduced my bounce rate some this past year but I have one page that captures a lot of traffic and it’s largely unrelated to the rest of my blog so I think the stats tend to get a bit skewed.
Very informative. I’m “obsessed” with my blog’s statistics. I check it all the time, especially the bounce rate. I think my blog is good but the bounce rate is still above 60%. It’s improving, though.
I’m embarrassed to say that I never knew what the bounce rate meant. Thanks for your explanation. It really does tell you more about what your page has to offer than the other statistics do.