So, friends, it's time for video answers, and today Denis Kolokolov is asking his question. For those who are not in the know, I will remind you that Denis Kolokolov is the only person so far who has successfully completed the “Young Fighter Course-2017” in contextual advertising. For which he has great respect.
Too lazy to read? at the end of the article!
Attention is a question!
Question by Denis Kolokolov (YouTube subscriber)“Attendance reports show many visits with zero visit times. Such visits account for about half. They mostly come from Adwords. Can you please tell me where to look for the reason for such transitions?
I have a small remark. If you know that this is from Adwords, then in theory it should not be difficult to find the reason in terms of at least the company. And then look into the depth of the cut. Here I am assuming from the question that you see the advertising source, but do not see its depth - the tree. That is, we make a small cut.
Analyzing traffic in Yandex.Metrica I'm assuming it looks like this for you. When you look in such a way that you have less than two or three seconds, you see that you basically have Adwords. This is how you weeded out and saw that some kind of shnyaga was coming. If so, then in order to understand what is happening, you need to look not at the levels of the source, but start to go down, into the depth.
Marking traffic from Adwords...
To do this, we simply set up UTM tags. I talked about how to set up UTM tags in a separate video, now here is a hint on the right upper corner will appear, there I will talk about it in detail.
In a nutshell, then Google Adwords There is a tool called "Tracking Template". We can use it at the account level, company level, ad group level, keyword, sitelinks, here they are called additional.
Labeling traffic in Adwords Well, it's easy to set up. A standard construction is set, here it is: lpurl, then manually enter the name of the campaign. Next is a set of containers. You can enter dynamic parameters here or set them manually.
…and analyze in Metrica reports
After that, if you did everything right, checked, again I address you to a separate video, in your metric, in the “UTM Tags” report, data will begin to suck. It looks like this. Let's take a month and see.
Look, here we have distributed by sources. That is, you see the situation in this form now. I have a 40% bounce rate on Google, what's the matter? Let's see.
First, we'll expand the tree and see what companies we have. We will see that we are mostly in trouble because of this digging - "Pumps". So, first of all, I'll go there.
I know that "Pumps" is my search campaign, which means that the first thing I will upload is the Search terms report. I'll see if I'm showing my ads to the right audience.
Likewise, I can go down. Here I will see the ad IDs and then I can expand and see the keywords. For convenience, you can use grouping and, for example, remove ad IDs.
To immediately turn to key phrases and see which ones bring a high bounce rate. This is how it will look like.
And if you look at the bounce rate in Analytics?
Reasonable question - why not look at the bounce rate in Google Analytics? Here you should know that of course we can go to traffic sources, Adwords, see campaigns, then also fall inside. But you should understand that the bounce rate in Google Analytics and Yandex.Metrica is calculated a little differently.
Again, in the upper right corner, note that there is a link to a separate video where I explain in more detail how to set up a bounce rate in Google Analytics. And most importantly, what is the difference between them.
Your question was within the framework of Metrica, so Denis, answering your question, I recommend that you mark up Adwords so that you have the opportunity to look at this traffic not only in terms of the source, but also in a deeper context. Then you can dig deeper.
I'm betting that your problem will be with the contextual media network. The fact is that if you take a campaign like "Networks" in Yandex Direct and transfer it, similarly set up a campaign in the contextual display network targeting key phrases - even if you use the list of negative sites, which you probably already used, this is not saves you from the fact that you may have unwanted traffic on the site.
Unfortunately, the quality of traffic from the contextual display network when targeting by keywords leaves much to be desired.
So, Denis, if I answered your question, put your finger up. If not, then let's continue, I'll try to help you.
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing no more than one page of it. There are many reasons why they might do this, but in general, a high bounce rate on a site is a bad sign for the site owner.
It seems to be - well, a metric is a metric, in analytics there are a lot of all sorts of numbers. But there's a problem. High rate Bounce rate indicates that all your efforts to attract traffic are leveled due to the fact that users simply leave the pages of the site without giving any conversions.
Imagine that you have an offline store. That's just potential clients just passing by. Or, even worse, they enter the door, look around the room and immediately leave. This is exactly what happens on your site every time analytics registers a "bounce".
The good news is that everything can be fixed. Here are some of the most common causes of this problem, and how to fix them.
Slow loading website pages
Nowadays, the speed of the site directly affects whether the user stays on it or not. Only a small part of visitors are ready to wait more than 3-4 seconds, and the majority will simply close the tab after this time.
This is especially important for mobile. No wonder Google in its service for testing site speed shows data for desktops and mobiles separately. Moreover, it is the tab with mobile that is displayed by default.
Google has long stated that site speed is a component of their ranking algorithm. So the improvement of this indicator is necessary at least in the context of SEO work. But, more importantly, it affects the user experience. And the bounce rate as well.
How to fix:
- check the speed of your site using one of the following services - Page speed insights, Pingdom Tools or GTmetrix;
- use the list of tips that these services give out after checking or pass them on to your developer;
- optimize images by reducing their volume using a graphic editor;
- monitor the load when installing various kinds of scripts, plugins or modules, they often negatively affect the speed of the site;
- use hosting that runs on SSD drives, not legacy HDDs.
Title doesn't match content
You can create a near-perfect title that includes all the keywords you want and that users love. But people will still continue to leave the site. The essence of the problem is that they do not find what they need in the article. The title and snippet simply don't match the content.
Often this may be due to the low qualifications of the author who wrote the material. The “wonderful” quality of many copywriters is the willingness to write on any topic without understanding it at all. As a result, it turns out water, which is completely uninteresting to users.
How to fix:
- parse the content of the page and edit the title and meta tags accordingly;
- rewrite the content in such a way that it really answers the search queries that are included in it.
Technical errors
They are on any site, even one that at first glance seems to be perfect. It’s just that some of them can be minor, while others can seriously affect the site’s performance and user experience. The slow page loading speed already mentioned at the beginning of the article can also be caused by technical errors.
For example, functional problems can lead to the fact that people cannot complete a transaction, interact correctly with the site (forms and buttons do not work), see a 404 page when they try to follow a link, etc. To find and fix problems, the most reasonable solution would be to involve specialists.
How to fix:
- the first thing to do is to look at the reports in the webmaster panels: the "Crawl errors" section in the Google Search Console and "Diagnostics" in Yandex.Webmaster;
- order a full-fledged technical audit or conduct it yourself if you have the appropriate skills;
- make a plan to correct mistakes and implement.
If you are more or less versed in the technical part, but are not an SEO specialist, you can use special checklists, for example, from this site or on the Rovertask blog.
Poor content quality
Everyone is talking about content now. But to speak is not to be able to do. Visitors may leave your site simply because your content is downright bad. And if readability issues are added to this, then a high bounce rate becomes an expected pattern.
Many people prefer to order articles on exchanges instead of looking for smart authors on the side and spending their time on it. As a result, for the automobile portal, the site of the medical clinic and the workshop for the repair of equipment, the text is written by the same jack of all trades.
Commercial niches may require the involvement of a content marketer who can develop a really effective strategy for you. Sometimes just finding a good writer is not enough.
How to fix:
- start with the basics: check your grammar and correct grammar mistakes. To do this, it is not necessary to hire an editor, you can use the same " Spelling";
- format the text on the page to improve its readability. Use highlights, subheadings, paragraphs, lists, and other similar elements for this;
- attract authors who are well versed in the topic they are writing about. Ideally, if they are professionals in their field;
- remember the basic principles of quality content - the article should answer the reader's questions, be informative, and reveal the topic;
- finalize the text on those pages where its quality leaves much to be desired.
Write texts in human language, avoiding complex terms and too long sentences. Dilute them with images, remember that people “scan” the page with their eyes, looking for something to catch on.
Poor usability
You can make the site beautiful, informative and functional. But the main thing is not this. The most important condition for success is that it should be easy to use. Otherwise, why would the user go to another page, even if the one on which he is, leaves only the desire to leave quickly.
But with something, but with the task of spoiling the visitor's impression of the site, many of their owners cope with a bang. Pop-ups, auto-playing content, banners, small fonts and a design that generally resembles the triumph of surrealism are just a small part of the gentleman's set.
Fixing usability issues is at the core of everything. Without this, it is almost impossible to significantly improve the bounce rate and conversion rate.
How to fix:
- make sure people can easily find what they are looking for – test navigation, search, check site for broken links;
- use pop-ups only when it is really necessary and show them to a specific visitor no more than once;
- the text should be easy to read on mobile and desktops, the graphics should not distract from the consumption of information;
- test whether it is convenient to interact with the site on different devices(laptop, tablet, phone);
- order testing of the site by real people, for example, through the AskUsers.ru service
outdated design
In addition to being well designed (usability), the site must also be visually appealing. Although good design is subjective, it is still important.
You can’t argue that a person’s desire to go into a stylish boutique will obviously be more than into a barn cluttered with old things. Even if both there and there they sell the same thing.
How to fix:
- easy way: buy a beautiful template for the CMS on which the site works;
- a more complicated option: order the development of an individual design from professionals.
Non-targeted traffic
Oddly enough, for some reason they think about it last. It may well happen that you need to reconsider semantic core. The challenge is to find words that will be more selectively targeted to your target audience. Referrals from less engaged audiences often have a negative impact on bounce rates.
If you promote a page for "designer kitchens to order" and it offers typical models from the catalog, it is not surprising that the visitor will leave as soon as they figure out what's what. This is a fairly simple example, but it just explains the essence of the problem.
How to fix:
- analyze for each of the popular entry pages the queries that lead to them from the search, then filter out the irrelevant ones;
- work with those pages that have a high bounce rate first.
Non-adaptive layout
Go to Google Analytics in the "Audience" report, select " Mobile devices”, and then the sub-item “Overview”. If you see something like this there:
And yet the design of your site is still not adapted for use on mobile - this is a problem. It is not surprising that in this case people leave the site, because it is simply inconvenient to use it. Visual comparison in the illustration below:
How to fix:
- you can buy a ready-made design on the same Themeforest, which already has an adaptive version;
- if you don’t want to change the existing one, you can order the adaptation of its layout for mobile.
CTAs don't work
The main task of CTA elements is clear from the very decoding of this abbreviation - Call to Action. That is, it is necessary to encourage the user to take a certain action on the site. Thus, he not only stays on the site, but views other pages of it, which reduces bounces. If the CTA elements are ineffective, then we will not be able to achieve our goal.
How to fix:
- analyze headings and text on buttons, forms and other elements. Perhaps they lack specificity, personalization, and a clear indication of what exactly the user needs to do.
Site not trusted
This is important for commercial projects, because people want to deal with reliable companies, in whose integrity you are sure. So don't hesitate to do detailed page"About us", indicate here contact details, reviews of existing customers, add guarantees / benefits to product cards if you have a store.
In addition to this, it would be useful to transfer the site to the HTTPS protocol. This green lock is still positively perceived by visitors, and for SEO is good eye for the future. In more detail, I analyzed all the nuances of this topic in this blog post.
Study and draw conclusions
Each specific site has its own problems and there are no universal recipes for detecting and eliminating them. In this article, I have given exactly the most common causes, which, in my experience, occur most often.
In any case, before making any changes to the content, design or functionality of the site, take the time to study the data collected by the analytics. Here you can find answers to many questions. Even small changes can have a huge impact on your bounce rate, allowing you to get much more value out of your site.
We have released a new book, "Social Media Content Marketing: How to get into the head of subscribers and make them fall in love with your brand."
Are you working on promoting your blog? Looking to increase your online store sales? Then the problem of decline should be close to you.
What is a website bounce rate?
Let's look at an example. During the month, only 140 visitors visited the site, 60 of them viewed only one page and closed your resource, the remaining 80 viewed two or more pages. Divide 60 by 140 and multiply by 100%. As a result, we get a bounce rate on the site of 43%.
What is the normal bounce rate on a website?
Getting to zero is nearly impossible. Even in popular online stores, failures are 30-40%. The average value for different sites is very different, and we need to take this into account:
- for a portal site or a service site, this value is approximately from 10% to 30%;
- for online stores, the normal percentage of failures on the site is already higher - 20-40%;
- even more at information sites - 40-60%.
Don't rely on any particular number. It is more important that the bounce rate is lower than that of competitors.
Reasons for refusal on the site: how to keep visitors on the site?
1. Download speed
The average user seeks to obtain all the required information as soon as possible. Believe me, a few seconds of waiting can be a good reason why the site will be bypassed. Put yourself in the place of the visitor. It is unlikely that you will wait more than 10 seconds. You should look for site errors that affect this parameter. Also, remove the ads before the content. Many ad servers are extremely slow, so the likelihood of an immediate goodbye to the site is very high.
2. Too much advertising
Remember forever: the site is not a Christmas tree.
Flashing-sparkling elements really attract the eye, but at the same time cause persistent disgust of visitors. Stupid tabloid headlines and pop-ups lead to this effect. Is your resource filled with really interesting content? Feel free to run pop-up ads a minute after the visitor enters - this will help reduce bounces on the site.
3. Clear navigation, competent search
Do you think intuitive algorithms are important only in computer games? Let the guest feel like a fool, you will never meet him again. Of course, the desire for uniqueness and originality is commendable. However, this kind of originality will hurt your bounce rate if you force visitors to search for information.
We should also mention an effective tool - search. Its absence on sites with a large number of pages and products causes a lot of inconvenience, an ordinary guest will prefer to quickly leave the site, search necessary information on another resource.
4. Music, video - clear enemies
Unlike supermarket customers, where there is no way to hide from the background music, your guests can always say goodbye to it instantly. People are tired of unnecessary pictures, sounds. Do you like a beautiful melody playing endlessly in a circle? Her only desire is to stop. Desperate to turn off the music, the visitor will leave the site.
Let's discuss the video, here the situation is even worse than with music. Many users refuse to pay for the traffic of the imposed video. This behavior of a webmaster is directly associated with a thief reaching into his pocket. Like this role? Then discard unnecessary attributes.
How to keep a visitor on the site? Do not force him to listen and watch what he does not want.
5. Unregister
You know about the high competition in the network. BUT free use met with numerous sites without the slightest hint of registration? Many sites offer registration through social networking accounts. But the mentality and natural laziness force us to look for warmer places, where there is no “registration permit” at all. Remove an annoying guest feature today and stop being surprised by the number of bounces tomorrow.
6. Update information
Prices from two years ago, a catalog of clothes that lost their relevance 10 years ago are good reasons for refusal on the site. Changed phone numbers, terms of delivery of goods - immediately update the site data. Is your brainchild perfectly designed and its information up-to-date? Then feel free to add interesting articles. Newly minted visitors often study the dates of the latest publications, try to please the audience.
7. Use Your 404 Page Properly
It is impossible to insure against software errors, so the appearance of a 404 page should be foreseen. Thanks to Google's suggestions, it's easy to improve this page by using Google Webmaster Tools. Simply adding a link to the main page, a search box, will help smooth out the awkward situation with the 404th page. It remains to be generous with humor, design and the problem can be considered solved.
8. Add contrasts, deal with fonts
Minimal steps are needed to make it easier for visitors to read the information offered. It is the contrasting background bright pictures will help to highlight the areas of the site that need to attract special attention.
Choosing the perfect font is easy enough. You should type up the article, read it carefully. If the eyes are comfortable while reading, then everything is done correctly. It is also necessary to take into account the impact on the readability of the content color, font type, line spacing, background color, presence of paragraphs.
9. Improve design
Only a beginner can afford cheap unprofessional design. Such savings will make visitors doubt the seriousness of the owner of the resource and the veracity of the information posted on the site.
Imagine walking into an untidy office or store that hasn't been re-wallpapered in decades. Nicely? Also, visitors rush to neat, beautifully designed sites.
10. Get rid of gray sheets, improve text quality
No matter how interesting and unique the text posted on the page is, its design should be given at least minimal attention. Bright headings, sensible lists, correctly selected paragraphs will help convey the necessary information to the reader.
Use the advice above. Make articles correctly and visitors will read them to the end!
In addition, you should get rid of clumsily entered key phrases, spelling and punctuation errors. If you are working with a highly specialized topic, then try to carefully operate with terms. Be generous by compiling a mini-dictionary or simply giving clear definitions in articles.
11. Offer Additional Content
If you're familiar with the term "related products", half the job is done. Imagine the buying process in a beer store. As complementary products, fish, crackers, chips are perfect. This principle also applies when working on the content of the site. For example, a woman chooses a stylish dress in a store, invite her to look at the section of modern jewelry, elite underwear. The simplest trick will help increase the number of pages viewed and make the entire resource more attractive as a whole.
12. Extremely useful information
Competent, unique, but absolutely useless texts are also included in the reasons for refusal on the site. A visitor who comes to see the cost of orthopedic mattresses will be disappointed to see lengthy discussions about their relevance, high quality and health benefits. Give specific answers to a specific request, stop pouring water.
Of course, the provided list of factors that irritate visitors is not complete. But you have plenty of work to do. Using the suggested tips, you can significantly reduce the bounce rate of the site.
Sergey Arsentiev
How to reduce Google Analytics bounce rate by 12 times?
Behavioral factors are becoming increasingly important. And pretty great importance has a so-called "bounce rate". Now I will tell you how to reduce it several times by adding just one line to the Google Analytics code.
According to Google, the bounce rate is the percentage of site visitors who leave the site after visiting just one single page.
100 people came to your site, 30 of them viewed only the login page and left the site without opening another page. While the remaining 70 visitors looked at other pages of the site.
Google considers that the site was uninteresting for the first 30 people, and records this event as a bounce rate, which will be equal to 30% in this case.
What does a high bounce rate mean?
The higher the bounce rate, the worse for search promotion site. Since Google tries to show in the search only sites that are interesting to people, including those that have a minimum bounce rate for specific search queries.
Google's traditional approach to bounce rate is not entirely correct. After all, there are one-page sites on which all useful information presented on one informative and long page. In this case, a person can no longer open other pages on this site, and the bounce rate of one-page sites is effectively 100%.
But is it correct?
After all, visitors to one-page sites get all the necessary information on one page. Therefore, it is, of course, wrong to consider a visit, during which a purchase may even have occurred, as a refusal.
In addition to one-page projects, a high bounce rate often occurs in specialized online stores with a small number of products, on young blogs, corporate sites. In short, wherever useful information can be presented on one specific page and where the visitor does not need to open other pages - after all, he has already received the information he needs!
How to reduce high bounce rate?
Of course, in the most traditional view, in order to reduce the bounce rate in Google Analytics, the site must have a lot of context, which must be linked together using smart and noticeable linking. In this case, people will open as many pages as possible and thereby reduce the bounce rate.
But there is one more hidden way, with the help of which I lowered the bounce rate in Google Analytics on almost all sites several times, spending just a few minutes once.
Here is a graph of how the number of bounces decreased after applying this method in my online store:
The whole secret is to make Google Analytics count as a bounce rate not opening a single page on the site, but the visitor staying on a single page after entering. within a certain time, for example, within 15 seconds.
In this case, only a quick exit from the site will be considered a refusal, when the information presented on it is obviously not interesting to the visitor. That is, the user typed a request in the search, went to the site, realized in 15 seconds or less that the site was not interesting and left - only in this case a refusal is recorded. And it's really logical.
If the user came to the site and for, say, as long as 10 minutes read one of its pages, then even if after that he leaves the site, this fact will no longer be considered a refusal, because it is logical to assume that the person received the information he needed.
All you need is to add one line to the Google Analytics code hosted on your site, which will calculate bounce rates in a new way. You can view this line by clicking on the button in social network where you are registered - it's simple and completely free.
By the way, back in 2011, Yandex improved its bounce rate and now it works exactly according to this scheme, which I suggest you use in your projects.
I am using this method reduced the bounce rate on this blog by more than 12 times - from 89% to 6%! What do you wish
Useful advice: How to quickly add useful article to your browser bookmarks: just press on your keyboard "CTRL+D" and a "Done" button, this works in most browsers, check it out now!
You just need to find out your bounce rate on the site and start analyzing it for a certain period of time and at the same time make some changes and see how this affects changes in statistics numbers.
Through trial and error, over time, you will find the perfect formula, using which your readers will come to you for search query, but will study a few more notes on your blog along the way and bookmark your site, then visit you periodically. But this is the ideal, of course.
Please note that bounce rates for Google Analytics and Yandex Metrica are different concepts and, accordingly, the numbers (most likely) for one site will be different. This is not because one visitor analytics service is more accurate, correct, or truthful, but the other is approximate. The thing is that they put slightly different values into the concept of failures, for this reason we observe different indicators in the counters of Yandex and Google.
google analytics bounce rate
If you go to the official Google Analytics page, then the exact wording sounds like this:
« Bounce rate is the percentage of users who viewed only one page when they visited the site.
To be more precise, this is visiting a page without performing any actions (watching a video, filling out a form, downloading a file) and leaving your site.
In order to find out the number of bounces on your site, you need to go to the Google Analytics website (this counter must first be installed and configured correctly) and select the “bounce rate” parameter in the checkbox indicated by the arrow in the screenshot:
Now you can see this indicator on the chart, and if you select an interval for analysis, then look at the dynamics of its change for a week or a month:
If you select the "Audience" item and then "Overview" when entering the statistics, you will see the statistics, in which the item of interest to us is also present:
As you can see from the screenshot above, this indicator is 9.77 for me, this is the average value for the last month, although earlier I had to see numbers of more than 40%, progress is obvious))
Google stats also allows us to look at the bounce rate for specific posts, rather than the average.
To do this, go to the "behavior" section, then the "all pages" subsection and select the desired interval (day, week or month)
Here you can already see the full statistics, or rather, its detail, (as they said during my studies at the university)) :
Now, in the column highlighted in yellow, you can see that in my case, one note clearly draws attention to the figure of 73.33%!
Here, for example, compare a thematic note in which this indicator is 2% with your analyzed one, which has 73.33% and this will tell you the answer, try, experiment.
Remember that constantly scribbling new articles is not enough, sometimes you need to stop, catch your breath and analyze the path you have traveled, make adjustments (if necessary) and keep moving. Sometimes a small change on a site can make a big difference.
We figured out the analytics from Google and the bounce rate, now let's move on to this indicator from the point of view of Yandex.
Bounce rate Yandex Metrica
Failures— the proportion of visits in which only one page view took place. If the "Exact bounce rate" option is enabled in the counter settings, then such visits are subject to an additional time limit for the visitor's activity: if the page has been viewed for more than 15 seconds, then the visit is not considered a bounce.
If the reader came to your particular page and stayed there for less than 15 seconds and did not take the necessary actions, then this is considered a bounce.
There is one "but"! When installing the Yandex Metrica counter, you need to check the "exact bounce rate" checkbox.
The second way is to reduce the number of plugins, various scripts, widgets, all kinds of unnecessary decorations on the site.
Choose reliable so that your site loads quickly and is always available to readers. Believe that if the page loading speed is low, then you will lose to your competitors in the search query a place in the TOP.
Remember that a useful good note with a bunch of beautiful unoptimized pictures and videos may simply not wait for its readers if it takes a very long time to load.
Summing up all of the above, I want to say that the bounce rate is a rather ambiguous value, and for each specific site it is quite difficult to determine its normal value offhand. But, this does not mean that you should not pay attention to it at all. If you have a personal blog and you want to improve it, think about your readers, then try to view the statistics, analyze its changes and take action if necessary.
I look forward to your questions in the comments and specific numbers of bounce rates on sites, we will analyze the statistics.
See you!
Sincerely, Nikolai Vilkov
Interesting Notes