Yes I am back after an extended hiatus. Let’s not mess around. Let’s talk about your bounce rate. What the heck is that?

A new client asked me that yesterday. (Yes, I am also taking on a few new clients – contact me if you are interested. and I thought it would make a good topic for this blog.

Short and sweet the bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who run screaming from your site moments after arrival. If you sign up for my blog alerts I’ll send you a report on how to avoid this. And, no, it is NOT some excuse to add your name to a list so I can cram your inbox full of spam. On the contrary, my worry is I don’t contact my subscribers enough so they don’t open my emails at all.

Now you know what the bounce rate means… so what? Google’s Avinash Kaushik spends an enlightening and entertaining 5 minutes on the topic below, but my version is thus:

Your bounce rate can tell you – at a glance – whether your web page is meeting the needs of your visitors. And this can mean two things…

1) Your traffic is garbage. Sorry, but sometimes the truth hurts. What this means is the folks coming to your site aren’t interested in what you’re offering.

2) Your traffic is good but you’re web page isn’t pushing the right buttons.

Let’s take this site for example:

Let’s say my bounce rate was 70% Yuck! What’s the problem?

Well suppose most of my traffic came from “CopyMachineWorld.com”. My suspicion would be those visitors were expected tips on using copy machines or something. Garbage traffic for me.

But what if I was using Google Adwords to drive targeted traffic to this page? OUCH! I’m paying for traffic and they can’t wait to leave! So I need to figure out if I’m buying the wrong traffic or simply not giving them what they want or need i.e. sending them the wrong message.

Bounce rate can be a very powerful metric so pay attention and then start asking questions.

So here’s Avinash Kaushik

If you need help improving your bounce rate, why not drop me a line?

God bless,

Andy

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