Google Analytics Bounce Rate: 7 Real-World Things to Learn!
If you’re reading this, you're probably looking at your Google Analytics overview pages at the numbers coming in wondering what is all this?
Or are you a pro who thinks they "Know all about" Google Analytics and Google Analytics Bounce Rates?
After reading this article, you will learn a few things about your Google Analytics Bounce Rate, and what you can do to improve them. This article will change your entire outlook toward these metrics and those fancy numbers that so many people treasure! But, is it really a treasure?
1. Bounce Rate is Only a Measurement
According to Google, the Google Analytics Bounce Rate is merely the percentage of single-page sessions (i.e. sessions in which the visitor left your site from the entrance page without interacting with the page). This definition in itself is only partially correct. Why? Because a user can come to your website and walk away from the computer, this counts as a bounce!
A measurement of a single interaction in this case would be a very poor measurement of performance of your website. This is because a Bounce Rate is something that is really an enigma.
2. Bounce Rate is Highly Personal to your Needs
Here we will discuss what we consider to be normal bounce rates at Sirius. Here is a very very important lesson, in fact, if you fail to grasp this, you'll likely fail in Internet Entrepreneurship! As a User, YOU DECIDE whether you have a good bounce rate or not. You have the power to decide because it's arbitrary to the needs of the site. Why?
The foundation of a Bounce Rate is a perceived negative experience. What someone is really trying to figure out with a Bounce Rate is this: Visitor arrives at your site and doesn't do X. By default, this interaction is that they only visited one page. However, you decide if this matters or not based on your site goals.
Remember that your search engine rankings are unaffected by the Google Analytics Bounce Rate Metric in any way, shape or form.
3. Google Analytics Bounce Rate vs. Performance
There are a ton of articles out there on decreasing bounce rates. But why? Why do people think lower is better? What about if you were to change your idea of what a bounce is, over to an event or an action? For example, an event would be they visit more than one page, they watch a video, or click on a link. It all depends on your needs.
Bounce rate is NOT a predictor of SERP ranking, or overall site performance.
What do you mean? Well, we mean an affiliate site will likely have a totally different Google Analytics bounce rate than an AdSense Niche site. Some of our Affiliate sites have very low bounce rates, others have higher, and typically our AdSense niche sites have anywhere from 50-80% bounce rates, yet are pulling in anywhere from 2K-3K per month!
Here are two Examples:
Maybe you make an offer with the acceptance form on the same page of a domain, after the visitor fills out the form, they leave, giving you a total bonafide bouncer (But you received a conversion)
Whats more important? Money? A Lead? or a Bounce?
Maybe you send them to an off-site page to purchase something. This action registers as a bounce, even though they’re doing what you asked.
4. What Are Average Bounce Rates?
These Google Analytics Benchmark Averages are based on Google's Webmaster Tools and Google AdWords.
40-65% Content websites
30-50% Lead generation sites
70-98% Blogs and AdSense Niche Sites
20-40% Retail sites / e-Commerce Stores
10-30% Service sites
70-90% Landing pages
Surprised?
What is your site's current bounce rate? Are you happy with it? If not, what are you going to do about it? Complain on a forum or educate yourself?
Bounce Rates Are NOT a Measure of Traffic Quality!
5. What are Bad Bounce Rates?
Derp! What do you mean bad? I thought that good old fashioned Organic Search Engine Traffic had a super low bounce rate, and only poor quality traffic from Bots had high bounce rates? Wrong!
At the time of writing, there are many ways out there that bot traffic can mimic organic search engine traffic using highly sophisticated software and other methods. Wait a minute! You mean all that Fiverr.com traffic I just purchased is not 100% AdSense Safe? No, its not. Besides, did you honestly think you could spend only 5 bucks and expect to make thousands? There is no such thing as a get rich quick scheme!
Here’s a popular analysis that we see floating around on forums. Typically written by complainers and know-it-all's who usually have little to intermediate experience and have failed with Internet Marketing. However, we won’t say where we found it, but we'll tell you that it's total utter bullshido.
- 50% or less is excellent
- 60-70% is typical
- 70-80% is poor
- 80%+ is very bad
The number one way to tell the difference is in the analysis of your channels and sometimes duration!
Google Analytics offers really cool benchmark techniques that you can use to track industry, size, channels, device, and Geo location. We'll teach you how to set this up by the way!
6. Your Website and Content
By now, you're probably derping pretty hard after reading this. We have probably unraveled some of your beliefs about how Google Analytics should look huh? Good.
Let’s think about your site and content again for a second. What is the goal of your website anyway? Does your website encourage people to spend time on the site and read the content? However, maybe you have an AdSense site that promotes ads alongside good content? Maybe you have an e-Commerce store, or a joke site where people lose hours of their life on!
Get Clear with your Goals!
7. Know your Market
So that means I can't just plunk my Google Analytics on a site and fly away off to making money? No, you see traffic doesn't work like that. Market research is required and we recommend using Market Samurai, or SEMrush.com for your keyword research.
However, a person can have a gorgeous Google Analytics Bounce Rate but then be making zero money. This then goes back to what we've been saying all along....
Content is King!
Your content must be formatted well, and written in a very engaging, and niche relevant tone. On a blog catering to teenagers, you shouldn't be speaking like a Medical School Professor. A website about dog training should not be talking about investing or have anything irrelevant. Make sure your content is niche relevant, and the formatting and readability of your articles is good.
Kind of like this one!
Almost like we knew what we were doing huh? 😉
