Any idea why my bounce rate could be so high?

[wparlaman]

Hello Everyone,

I'm stumped.

My primary website has a horrendous bounce rate of around 75%

My domain is www.radicalmarketingsolutions.com

My home page has a bounce rate of around 68%.

The funny thing is, I have a page on Google Analytics basics for small business owners that is my 3rd top page for content, I have an average time on page of over 3 minutes yet my bounce rate is 90%.

I have another page on how to depersonalize your google searches in Chrome and Firefox that is a top page with a time on page over 5 minutes and this page has a bounce rate of 96%!

I felt that my old design was really hurting me so I changed the design in the beginning of this month and it does not look like it's helped much.

I really simplified the site, created a lot more white space and added some links to my other important pages in hopes to get more click throughs.

I would really love some honest "constructive" feed back on my site as to why the bounce rate could be so high.

I have a ton of content on my blog and I get a lot of positive feedback.

One thing I did not do was exclude my IP from Analytics so I could be influencing the numbers. I've added this filter and hoping this will help.

Another issue is I do email my list with each new blog post. This could mean those folks visit the post and then leave without reading anything else on my blog. So this could be hurting me as well.

Would love your suggestions.

Thanks,

Bill Parlaman

[ShaMenz]

Glad to be of help

One of the things I worry about most in SEO is changing things for the sake of change ... I've learned the hard way to take a breath and think before reacting. It's a hard lesson to learn, but it can be really satisfying when you discover that you made the right decision.

[wparlaman]

Oh sure. Suppose I asked for feedback and then I argue with you? Not too smart. You learn the most from your mistakes. Thanks again for all of your help.

[MarieHaynes]

You've got a great attitude Bill!  A while back I asked some peers for feedback on my website and they gently told me a few areas where it just didn't look professional.  I ended up doing a site redesign and ended up tripling my traffic after a few months.  It pays to be humble!

[wparlaman]

Hi Marie,

Thanks so much for your feedback. I am glad I posed this question as the ebook and look of my page has been mentioned so I got to get to work. Like I said above, I am changing my ebook offer in exchange for a 7 page video training course. This might change the look and feel of my page. Thanks so much.

[wparlaman]

Thank you Sha for your feed back. This was really helpful. I am working on a new lead gen give away and moving away from the ebook. I will be doing a video course. So maybe this will help. Most of my readers are direct response marketers so they would expect a two step lead gen offer. Thank you for your time.

[ShaMenz]

Hi Bill,

I assume when you say "I do email my list with each new blog post" that you are bulk emailing your established readers, to let them know you have posted since I can't see an RSS subscribe button on the site.

The fact is that established readers for the most part don't need to read anything more than the post you are telling them about in your email. They have most likely already read any other material on your site that interests them.

It is well known that blogs with significant numbers of subscribers often have high Analytics bounce rates for this reason. The data to focus on is sources of your traffic. Do you have a large proportion of referral or direct (type-in) traffic?

The thing to remember is that the bounce rate reported in Analytics is not the same as "real bounce rate" determined independently by the engines. "Real bounce rate" takes into account time on page. I would think it most unlikely that you will see any negative impact in Google or Bing with the time on page numbers you are quoting.

My most constructive advice would be:

1. Check to see exactly what percentage of your traffic is coming from search as opposed to referrals/type-ins
2. Stop messing with things to try to fix what isn't really broken - sooner or later it will hurt you.

The other comments here about the "look" of the site are probably valid - the style does bear a resemblance to some "sales letter" type sites, but on the other hand, you do have a lot of content and it sounds like a good number of happy readers. I would think carefully about any changes you make.

Hope that helps,

Sha

[MarieHaynes]

No solutions here, but just a few thoughts.  When I visit this page my first thought is, "Oh this is one of those sales letter pages that just exists to make me buy an ebook.  I'm probably going to get trapped by javascript when I hit the back button."  Personally I think this style of page may have worked well a few years ago, but it's become abused by too many people.

With that being said, I think bounce rate is a metric that's hard to compare.  My top performing site has a bounce rate of 89%.  This is because people visit the page, get the info they want and then move on.  I've decreased it a bit by enticing users with tools they can use and similar pages they can visit.  But I don't think my bounce rate will ever be 50% or lower.

If I had your site I may consider trying some A/B testing with totally different kinds of designs and see what attracts and keeps the visitors best.

[philipbuuck]

Hey Bill, I don't know if this sounds like something too worrisome, but something you could potentially do is look through your analytics, match the keywords getting you traffic with the landing pages, and see if they're optimized.  Are the pages answering the people's questions clearly?  Is it giving them content that would lead them to want to read more?

For keywords that have high bounce rates (besides [tools] of course) you may want to make a page that specifically answers the searcher's questions, and perhaps end the article with a call to action to another page of your site, something that will intrigue them and get them to stick around longer.  But at least make sure the landing pages are optimized for the keywords people are finding them from.

[wparlaman]

Well those keywords are kind of the low hanging fruit when you run an SEO consulting firm. Trying to rank for SEO, SEO consultant, SEO firm is tough.

Maybe I can try to soften up the content a bit.  I'm also going to add a video this week.

I am on the first page for my keywords but my concern is Google knocking me down for my high bounce rate.  My traffic is really increasing so I know I am doing some things right.

Thanks for your help

[AlanMosley]

Well I guess that is good news, since tools is a keyword that was never going to convert anyhow.

Your heeading and side looks fine, nice and clean professional looking, but as i said below the actual main content looks a bit hard sell. But having said that 40% for your top keywords conflicks with the spammy idea.

as for radical marketing, well i can see that getting some wierd sorts of clicks, It may be you have nothing to worry about

[wparlaman]

In my top 10 this is what I found

For my main keywords like small business internet marketing and small business seo my bounce rate is in the 40% range.

funny thing is my most popular keyword the last 30 days is "tools" which has a 98% bounce but I do not see my site ranking for this. "tools" is in my top 10 for the past year with a 75% bounce rate.

86% for radical marketing

My bounce rate has always been in the 70% range. This is why I changed my design and home page layout. My home page used to be more of a squeeze/landing page.  So I added more links to click and cleaned everything up.

I added a video training course with 10 videos you can access from my home page ( no optin required)

[AlanMosley]

i have to agree, its not spammy in content, just seems to look like spammy sites from memory.

its in the main content area, cant put my finger on any one reason why, but maybe play with some fonts of stuf, tone it down a bit. It was my first impression also.

[ThomasHgenhaven]

Happy to help. I think the problem might be, that it looks too much as a lead gen site, and too little as a site with great content / serious services.

[kabouterwijsneus]

The red title looks very aggressive and maybe can you can please a border around your content. When I visited your frontpage I saw a wall of text. :s

Start playing with your layout and track it with google website optimizer.

[wparlaman]

Thanks for your honesty. Spammy is the last thing I would have thought on this site. I have my phone number and contact information very visible. I am sharing my social networks with folks, I have a very active blog. I have real testimonials with photos and there is zero adsense or banner ads. I feel any good direct response website should have some sort of lead gen to capture names and emails.

You bring up a point I did not consider and I appreciate this.

[AlanMosley]

What keywords are getting the high bounce rate?

Looking at your home page, its the sort of site after reading, you are either intrested or your not, unlike selling products where people may have a look at a few different pictures or products before making up their minds. I guess that does not explain a 90+ rate though

Has it always been so high, or is this a new thing?

[ThomasHgenhaven]

Hi Bill,

I am sorry if this sounds a bit harsh - but I would not like to give any information to your website. Although the design is simple, it looks kinda spammy to me. It looks like a site that wants my email address and then sell it to other.

Good CRO starts with data collection. What I'd do if I was you is to ask a bunch of Amazon mTurkers some questions about your site. A good list of questions is the one Google uses - you can find it here.

Also, a small thing is the moving fav.ico - would definitely find a new, static one.

So the short answer to your question: invest in better design. But do it on the background of data.

Best,

Thomas