Google Analytics Benchmarking Newsletter: How does your site perform?
-
With Google recently releasing benchmarking data I am curious as to what you all see across the various types of website niches that you work with (eCommerce, news, blog, services, small business, etc). And how SEO'd websites compare with this "raw" data provided by google.
We have one medium size (12,000 products) strictly eCommerce website that has a bounce rate of 37% and an avg time on site of 5:20
While two other medium size eCommerce/blog sites have a bounce rate of 57% and 59% with average time on site of 2:37 and 2:30 respectively.
Finally, I manage a website for a local small business that provides business and home cleaning services. This site has a bounce rate of 45% and 1:40 average time on site.
How do your sites perform in these areas? Is it typical to see this great of a disparity between strict eCommerce websites and those sites that are both informational and transactional in nature? What about other kinds of websites?
Cheers!
-
Hey Aaron,
good point, hard to always keep that in perspective. The reason that I am concerned about it is because from what I understand google is taking those metrics and using it in there search results. We have a landing page that is full of good content, people spend an average of over 4 minutes on it (a single page) and it had a good conversion value, however it had a high bounce rate. We have seen the number of impressions where this pages shows up decline quite substantially over the past month and I am wondering if it is do to the high bounce rate.
So if the search engines are incorporating those stats, as much as it might not mean anything in terms of user experience (i.e. we are actually providing a good user experience), it might mean a lot for how the search engines rank you (i.e. they just see a high bounce rate).
Thanks for the response!
-
Bounce rates are tricky. Sometimes the better the landing page, the higher the bounce rate. What you guys have been touching on is that is is near impossible to come up with a real relevant benchmark for the web as a whole. ... But if you/your clients are better than average it makes a nice sales piece...
-
That would be really nice to see, and would definitely be helpful. Would love to see that take place.
Fireclick's stats are very interesting, will look at it a little more, thanks for the tip.
-
We could do with someone like SEOMoz to do a survey, separated by industry whereby people submit their average bounce rate.
Another good resource is Fireclick Index
Though no bounce rates!
-
Hey Benjamin,
Thanks for the response, good info, and sharing your stats. I think your last statement about comparing bounce rate directly between industries is exactly what I was thinking. The aggregated stats from google are great but there is no segmentation so it doesn't seem to be incredibly helpful as a benchmark. Thus the question and hopefully we will get enough answers to get a feel for how different industries compare and how the sites that the seomoz community handle fair as compared to the aggregate stats.
I know that we have quite a bit of work to do to get our sites optimized.
Thanks again for your response
-
We have a medium sized site, selling books - we have around 15,000 products.
Our bounce rate is 38% and our average time on site is 3:16.
I've heard of bounce rates as low as 9% or as high as 80%, it depends on three main factors as far as I can tell:
1. Industry: what industry is your website in? Like you say in the OP, you see a disparity between eCommerce websites and information sites. If you come across a book site and you are looking to buy books - chances are willing to stay at least long enough to browse a category or do a search. Conversely if you are looking for a specific piece of information, and the specific information isn't available immediately on site - chances are you are going to bounce. I've also heard that Non-profit sites have lower bounce rates compared to say, a flat out retail website. Whilst there isn't an industry average, you certainly can plot bounce rate ranges for industry.
2. Traffic Source / Quality: it's fair to say if you have a bounce rate of over 70% you are probably not getting quality traffic. Or your site isn't relevant to the traffic you are attracting. We've seen a few big spikes in traffic due to email campaigns or blog posts and on those days the bounce rates have always been higher.
3. Web Design: it's clear that website design is going to have an effect on bounce rate - if you've got a well designed and relevant landing page for the keyword you are targeting then clearly your bounce rate will be lower. If you're targeting 'robots' as a keyword and your design is full of pictures of monkeys - expect a higher bounce rate. Slow loading times and often a complete lack of SEO often lead to high bounce rates.
I think it's unfair to compare bounce rate directly between industries - it is subjective, but it gives a great indication of how your landing pages are doing so I often look at bounce rate for landing pages from search only.
Here are some good bounce rate resources:
- Bounce rate and design http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/web-design-bounce-rate/
- Bounce rate demystified http://webanalysis.blogspot.com/2007/07/bounce-rate-demystified.html
- Google Analytics Forum Post on bounce rate: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Analytics/thread?tid=3301d79d3932b447&hl=en
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
HUGE spike in Google Analytics Traffic
Hi there, I am witnessing a giant spike in my Google Analytics data (website: www.exchangecapital.com ) and I am completely stumped. My website usually gains roughly 15-20 visitors a day at most--and as of 11:10 am today my sessions for the day are up to 150. The traffic spike started on Friday at 132 sessions, Saturday at 261, Sunday at 247, etc. It's common that our sessions don't even hit the double digits over the weekends, so you can imagine my confusion. After trying to pin down some irregularities in geography, browser, and behavior, I'm still at a loss. I'm seeing a big spike in organic traffic (all not provided), as well as direct page visits, and I'm gaining traffic from US, Brazil, United Kingdom, Mexico, Spain, Malaysia, etc. etc--so not just one specific area. Is anyone else witnessing this in their data? Does anyone have any insight or ideas as to how I can look further into this? I am at a loss and any information would be appreciated. Thanks in advance! Lauren McLaughlin
Search Behavior | | LMcLaughlin0 -
When Googling site:mydomain.com what does listing order tell us?
To find all the pages on my site that are indexed by Google I can search using site:mydomain.com and it gives pages of results. But what does the order of results relate to? Is it page rank or strength? My list of pages doesn't appear to be in order of strength. And it's definitely not by age or alphabetical...
Search Behavior | | GregB1230 -
Any experience with Cogix and Analytics?
Where I work we use Cogix to do in-depth surveys and I'd like to do as much indepth tracking of the survey as possible. My code experience in Analytics setting up code and tracking events is limited but my IT department could help if I knew which direction to go in. Basically what I want to do is on a survey we have like this http://surveys.apqc.org/ViewsFlash2/servlet/viewsflash?cmd=page&pollid=OSBC!HCM_Recruiting_2013 What is the best way to set up tracking so I could know where they abandon survey? Would it be event tracking or something else?
Search Behavior | | inhouseninja0 -
Why are Google ranking changes so drastic?
Hi SEOmoz community I'm sure this question has been asked numerous times before. At the same time there must be plenty of people out there wondering about the same thing: Why are Google ranking changes so drastic? It's like the diva of search engines. When checking the SEOmoz ranking reports, sometimes lots of keywords improve, the next week it's vice versa. Mind though that the ranking changes are not in proportion. While improving keywords climb up by approx. 1 - 10 positions, declining keywords always get a smack with a 15 - 25 position drop, even though these very same keywords are being targeted onsite through new content. It seems to make no difference after all 😉 Is it possible, that keyword fluctuations are stronger for younger sites? The site I am talking about is about a year old. Is it possible that more competitive keywords see more drastic fluctuations? Would be interested to hear your thoughts. Thanks!!
Search Behavior | | Hermski0 -
Internal Site Search Analysis
Hi Folks, I have about 6,000 internal site search phrases that I want to analyze. There are many variations and duplicates that have similar intent within the data, e.g. Employment, Employment Opportunities, Employment Application. Does anyone have any thoughts on how I can aggregate the data to get an idea of user intent. There's a lot of long-tail in there. The data does not come from Google's site search tool. I just have a spreadsheet of the terms and the number of times they were searched. Cheers!
Search Behavior | | BedeFahey0 -
Site has taken a fall
I suspect (Although find it hard to beleive!) that a recently aquired link may have affected the rankings of one of my sites for all of it's keywords. Should I get this link removed asap or leave it and see if things recover? To me, it just smacks of un-nautral if the link gets removed straight away.
Search Behavior | | PeterAlexLeigh0 -
Googles 'freshness' update and how it may affect Estate Agents.
We have some clients who have raised concerns over how this new update will affect them. They are an Estate Agents who regularly update their property portfolio, blogs and news section etc. Can you advise how they may or may not be directly affected? Thank you.
Search Behavior | | SoundinTheory0 -
Can I use Google Analytics to find out actual times of visits during the day??
Hi, I'm a newbie at all this - I hope someone can help me. We're thinking of running time-specific offers to try and convert as many of our customer site visits as possible e.g. 15% discount if you call between, say, 2 and 5pm. It would be really helpful to me to find out what times of day people are visiting our site. I can't seem to find a way to do this on Google Analytics. Can anyone help? Thanks so much Sue
Search Behavior | | 3Amigos0