Bounce rate help?
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I'm trying to get to the bottom of the bounce rates of a few of the keyword results on my site.
I think I'm getting traffic to an informative page and visitors are reading it then hopping back to Google to search for the terms I've just given them and I'm getting high bounce rates for this.
I'll use an example to make it clear.
A Google search for "hp 3050 ink" gets my HP 3050 printer page (A page that lists all the cartridges that will work in a HP 3050 printer) as a pretty good result.
So far so good, right?
My problem comes when I look in analytics and see that this page has a massive 80% bounce rate.
The only reason I can think of is that people are using my site to find out what cartridge a printer will take and then using that information to refine their search.
Am I over looking something? Is there anything I can do? Does it even matter? If it does is it really fair that my site is being punished for being a useful resource?
Thanks in advance
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Did you ever consider the impact of your domain name on some potential buyers? Some might think it is cute but some might see it as something else.
There are many other reasons why people might have a short visit. Lots of people price shop. As you state, lots are looking for information. And, lots are looking for something that you don't offer - such as "ink" for refilling - that is what they searched for, right? "HP 3050 ink"
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Is the 80% for that page comparable to other similar pages on your website?
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Hi John
I suspect when users visit the site they see the first item which is by far the most prominent on the page and think yikes when they see the price tag. This may also not be helped by the fact that one of the top Adwords adverts has a title of HP Ink Cartridges £6.99.
Another reason may be that consumers in this market do a lot of comparison shopping before buying. It may be interesting to look at your visits to purchase reports to see how many users visit then return at a later date to actually make the purchase.
I would suggest running some tests on different layouts for the page you mention. I would look at the impact of reordering the products so a cheaper product is first and also test reducing the amount of space dedicated to each product so you can display more products above the fold.
If you are worried that reordering products would reduce sales of your most expensive item you could attempt to sell-up on the product pages for the other items.
Hope this helps.
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It's well above the average for the website. Other pages that target a specific printer also have very high (70%+) bounces.
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The domain name shouldn't impact some results more than others though right? If there was an "ewww" factor (my research prior to setting up back in '02 indicated there wasn't) surely it would be fairly broad over all terms and I'm just not seeing that.
It could be the re-filling ink issue but on a couple of the affected pages we do stock ink re-fills so I doubt it.
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Thanks for the point about the pricing, I'll certainly see what I can do about that.
I agree on the market shopping but it's not quite the issue. Most people, from what I can tell, will want to know what type of cartridge suits their printer. They hit up the search term with the model of the printer and from my page or others they get back the actual name of the cartridge their printer takes. They then Google that and start shopping.
I don't see this (directly) as an issue, I'm doing my best to optimise for brands of cartridge so with a bit of luck I'll get the % of customers I deserve through that. What I'm concerned about is Google nudging me down for having huge bounce rates.
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The design is cluttered and unwelcoming and I just dont trust it, I would bounce Im afraid
btw, try variations of designs in 5secondtest.com
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My quick research here had a 100% ewww factor.
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Thanks. The question however is why would that impact these specific pages significantly more than the rest of the site?
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We've got a redesign coming soon but I was eager to get opinions on this issue first.
Any Idea why the bounce rate would be much higher on these few pages than the rest of the site?
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How about trying crazyegg or clicktale?
Then you can see how people are interacting before they bounce. Getting an idea of how they browse; do they scroll and then bounce or just bounce straight away - may give you some clues
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We are working on a brand new design at the moment, and that Fivesecondtest site looks really good, thanks for the heads up
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Sorry, nothing personal, but you asked.
My opinion is you have a huge problem witht he domain name. I'm sure some people think it's cute and don't mind. That said, I would be much more likely to buy ink cartrides from a domain like best-ink-cartridges-dash-dash-dash.whatever than from stinky ink. Even if the best ones were more expensive.
In short, many people will relate the name with the quality of the product being sold. I bet changin your name would lower your bounce rate across all your pages.
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Sorry, nothing personal, but you asked.
My opinion is you have a huge problem witht he domain name. I'm sure some people think it's cute and don't mind. That said, I would be much more likely to buy ink cartrides from a domain like best-ink-cartridges-dash-dash-dash.whatever than from stinky ink. Even if the best ones were more expensive.
In short, many people will relate the name with the quality of the product being sold. I bet changin your name would lower your bounce rate across all your pages.
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Actually I didn't, My query is about a a specific subset of my pages getting a higher bounce rate. Unless you can think of a reason why these terms are getting hit harder by a dislike of my domain name than other much more competitive terms it really has no bearing.
I would love to get your input, however harsh, on the question I asked however.
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Here are two things what you might want to do.
First,Try writing a javascript which passes a google analytics call every 30 second on that page. Event tracking should suffice for this in below format.your actual bounce rate would be affected but you will be able to identify the frequency distribution of people who bounce within different time span. You can choose 30 to 60 sec or even 10 sec interval frequency.
gaq_push(_trackevents,category = br_test,action=stillthere,label=30sec,value=30)
after another 30 second google analytics call should be like this
gaq_push(_trackevents,category = br_test,action=stillthere,label=60sec,value=60)
The real purpose here is to keep constantly checking the engagement & learn the frequency distribution of time user spends before he actually exits from the website. When you see that out of 100 bounces 20% bounces are within first 30 second , you can conclude that they are not just due to price as price is clearly visible.
Let me know if you need help with JS & I'd probably write it on my blog.
Secondly, you should try running some feedback campaign with Kissinsights, as it might help unearthing real issue from consumer itself.
Best luck with your effort !
Ravi
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John,
At 80% bounce suggests something that is quite considerable, i.e. more around user purchase intent.
There could be many reasons for the cause but without analytics it’s guesswork. Can you segment the 20% that are staying and provide some metrics? Tracking tools that measure scrolling would be very useful here.
I would look at testing different landing pages that are focused theme around different levels of prospect behaviour. Initially trying some A/B combinations should yield some statistically significant results immediately.
An A/B test with 3 pages:
1) Informational theme (focus on providing the information a prospect might need, assume they are not quite ready to buy yet)
Remove 5% off banner, for this page in particular its too early and pushes the actual product list down. Also 5% is a pretty low discount and suggesting "clearance" reduces perception of quality.
Title: Find the best HP 3050 inks cartridges to suit your needs
Make as many changes as you can to support this informational theme, can you order the inks in best selling order and make this stand out? Maybe add star rating/scores or other social proof like user reviews?
2) Hard sell - (Focus on cost benefits i.e. cheap vs competition. Assume prospect wants to buy but looking for a deal)
Title: Save £££'s on HP 3050 Ink cartridges
Cost focus: Ensure headline talks about cheapest or best value for money, list your inks from LOWEST cost first. Mention any cost savings discounts.
3) Quality of brand/product info (Assume kind of ready to buy but need proof of quality and PREMIUM benefits)
Title: Premium 3050 ink cartridges that will guarantee beautiful prints
Ensure product list default descending from highest quality first
Talk about premium/quality benefits and take it from there
The boxes on the right are ok but all look the same, especially the benefits box - I will bring this out more.
Larger font or contrast, clear heading also add in call to action in the main column so they notice this, possibly an arrow. Or you could integrate this content to where the current 5% offer banner sits.
Once you have the results, look at the conversions, not just individual pages but which traffic source converts better?
It could be certain traffic sources or keywords send you traffic that convert better on a certain page than another. This lets you understand the quality of that traffic as well.
Monitor the results. give it 1-2 weeks if you have to but if a page is obviously bad for ROI then drop it (ensuring you have enough data to back it up).
After this step you can move on to tweaking traffic sources and doing a follow-up test on the best performing theme(s).
REMEMBER all of the above is just best guesses - its the actual tests that will tell you the real answers.
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Thanks for your time Hash. We will digest all of this information and will certainly try the testing that you suggest
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