Low Traffic, High Bounce Rate,Experienced Hubbers Help

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  1. tristam15 profile image60
    tristam15posted 14 years ago

    Hey fellow hubbers,

    I've been posting quite a few hubs recently and I've also been doing quite a lot of SEO for them however, there is some part of the puzzle that just isn't clicking for me.

    Most of the people that are coming to my hubs are bouncing, my bounce rate is 78%.

    Can you look at just 1 hub for me and give me some feedback regarding what I can do to improve. 

    Any feedback is appreciated, if you can help me out that'd be of great help.

    I've got all the stats being tracked by Google Analytics, if you need more info, I can provide it.

    Thanks

    Spread HubLove,

    Tristam15

  2. lrohner profile image68
    lrohnerposted 14 years ago

    I actually consider that a fairly low bounce rate for HubPages. As I'm sure you know, a "bounce" is simply a visitor that reads one page of a website and then leaves. If you had a blog totally focused on SEO topics, for instance, you would want readers to stick around. But when a visitor comes to HP and reads your hub on keyboards, why would they want to stick around to read about air conditioners?

  3. thooghun profile image90
    thooghunposted 14 years ago

    Irohner is right. It confused me for the longest time as well. Despite almost every one of my hubs having a full star reading time, I was confounded by the high bounce rate. It is determined by how topic specific you are.

    I write like a jack-of-all trades and therefore a reader is unlikely to find something else of immediate interest I wrote unless I link to it or it is in the "related" posts or my RSS feed.

    I'd pay attention to the length of time people spend on specific pages, and not at bounce-rate in its entirety.

  4. Spacey Gracey profile image38
    Spacey Graceyposted 14 years ago

    Not much more experienced than you in terms of time, but I am a stats woman so thought I would chuck in my 10 cents.

    The bounce rate alone means nothing. You need to analyse it alongside your earnings and view duration.

    For example:
    Low bounce rate + long duration = they liked your writing and went on to find more smile
    High bounce rate + short duration + high income = they land on the hub, see a nice looking ad and leave immediately = you should be happy because you get paid for them leaving
    High bounce rate + long duration + low income = you are missing sales opportunities. If they are reading through the whole hub but hitting the close or back button to leave instead of clicking on an Amazon hub or ad, then you need to change your layout....

    And so on and so on....lots of combinations. I'm sure there's other stuff to consider too, but my point is that one statistic on its own is completely meaningless.

    1. thooghun profile image90
      thooghunposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      There's something about the way you wrote that that makes me want to hire you, give you a teller's hat and listen to the constant "cha-ching-cha-ching" of stats being compiled and scrutinized.

      big_smile

    2. Pcunix profile image82
      Pcunixposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      There is a lot to consider.

      Where you WOULD care is if the page is part of a funnel that is supposed to lead to a sales page clincher.  There is where you hate seeing bounces or exits.

      You don't like seeing bounces on index pages.  If you see that, it bears investigation and it's usually from entering via keywords that the page they came to doesn't seem to help them with. If there is a lot of that, and you DO have matching content, some page redesign is indicated.

      Given the common use of tabbed browsers today, timeout exits are quite common. People just get busy in another tab - they may actually come back to you, but the Analytics timer has expired so you get a bounce and an exit.  It's not a real bounce, but Analytics doesn't know that.

      Consider someone researching some subject. I do this all the time: do a search, visit the page, copy the URL and perhaps some text to remind me and then back to the search to look at the next page. I might never go back - the info I copied is what I need for my research and I have the URL if I am going to reference it. 100% bounce but the pages are very meaningful (at least the ones I copied the url from are). If I do return, it might be hours or days later, long after Analytics has decided that this was a bounce.

      Avinash Kaushik famously said that a high bounce rate means "I came, I puked, I left",  He's not necessarily correct - sometimes it means  "I came, I found what I needed, Thank You, Good Bye." ( http://blog.gadodia.net/an-expert-tip-i … nt-page-1/ ).   I have many tech pages that answer a  specific problem - you would expect people to immediately leave with their answer and go fix it.   I expect 90% + bounce rate on those pages.

      And yeah, for HubPages, nothing wrong with 78%.  Mine here is currently 76.95%.

    3. profile image0
      awesome77posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Right answer! The key is income. If you're making money then high bounce rate is good!

      1. Pcunix profile image82
        Pcunixposted 14 years agoin reply to this

        Or meaningless.

        But of course people can't help but wonder if they could do better.  AsI said in my post above, there  are conditions where that might be true, so it is always worth looking into Analytics to learn more about what was going on.  The answer might be that there is nothing you can change, of course.

    4. tristam15 profile image60
      tristam15posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Ok now regarding the duration the avg time on site is 00:04:49.

      The bounce rate is now 75.75%.

      With tabs, I think people just open 10 tabs at once then start going through them one by one and if they find what they're looking for, they just close the remaining.

      I do that often so I'm presuming that others do that as well.

      1. Pcunix profile image82
        Pcunixposted 14 years agoin reply to this

        Or they just  leave the tab open for an hour and forget about it, and that WILL be a bounce and it will record 0 time on the page. 

        The problem is that you find a lot of bad advice on the Internet warning about bounce rate.  IT CAN BE MEANINGFUL AND IMPORTANT IN SOME SITUATIONS, but for many of us it is not meaningful at all.

        If you have funnel pages which try to get someone to another page, of course you want to see a low bounce.

        You want to see low bounce on index pages.

        If Analytics shows you that a particular search is bringing people to a page that has links to the relevant pages but the visitors are bouncing rather than following the links, yeah, you should be concerned.

        But otherwise, it can be completely unimportant.  COMPLETELY unimportant.

        As Wrylilt noted, seeing a high bounce rate doesn't mean you aren't making money.  At my main site yesterday, Analytics shows an overall bounce rate of  89.94%.  Total Adsense for the day was $52.04 and the pages with significant earnings all had 90% plus bounce rates.   So, do I care about the bounce rate?  Would I rather have a 30% bounce and have made $20 instead?  No, thank you anyway smile

        Don't fret %bounce or %exit.

  5. tristam15 profile image60
    tristam15posted 14 years ago

    Thank you guys for all your help, it's given me important insights, on the topic of income, nope, there is low income for all my hubs, just a $1.35 in around 2 months, I was inactive mostly during this time so I don't expect any income, however, I've posted several hubs since Oct 24th and also I've backlinked them and did enough SEO that I should do for a hub(as per what I think/know maybe wrong.)

    My situation is

    Low traffic + 78% bounce rate + Low income(No income from most) so now what do you guys suggest I do?

    I've written the articles on specific keywords which have ample potential.

    How do you find my hubs? Are they interesting, boring, poor quality, not to the point?

    If you could just pick up 1 hub and just give me a few pointers on how I could improve quality that would be fantastic.

  6. profile image0
    TopUniverseposted 14 years ago

    You didn't mention the average page views per day. Traffic is the key to get higher income.

    1. tristam15 profile image60
      tristam15posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      The avg visitors per day are  8.74  Visits / Day.

      1. WryLilt profile image85
        WryLiltposted 14 years agoin reply to this

        Average visitors per hub or per the whole account?

        1. tristam15 profile image60
          tristam15posted 14 years agoin reply to this

          That's the avg visitors per the whole account which only tracks hubpages.

  7. snakebaby profile image72
    snakebabyposted 14 years ago

    That is my question as well, glad found some answers and guidance here. I do want to confirm, when I see 100% bounce rate, it doesn't necessarily mean people come in and exit immediately without even bother reading your hub, yes? I thought so early on, and became concerned about why people do not want to read, or at least scroll down for few sec and leave, since many keywords are so relevant yet they still have 100% bounce rate, plus avg time on site is 0, that is another thing I don't understand

    1. Pcunix profile image82
      Pcunixposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      No, it is actually pretty complicated.  There are hubs that go into detail, including my own.  You might want to do some reading.

      1. snakebaby profile image72
        snakebabyposted 14 years agoin reply to this

        I will later, thanks a lot unix (btw., I got an Unix certificate more than 10 years ago and since muddled with computer for 6 years, but as a DBA other than unix admin:) )

  8. Mikeydoes profile image41
    Mikeydoesposted 14 years ago

    Don't worry too much about those, start making more and see if you can start getting more views. I keep making more and my new ones outperform all of my old ones.

    I just try to think of new ideas and just run with them, if they don't work I just move on.

    I made a hub that has been around 2 days, it is a only good page, nothing special. I also did very little research, but it was by far the best performing hub for me ever. I was over 1000 views for a bit, its dying down a little, still holding strong though.

    today /week   /month  /ever
    854    1658    1658    1658   

    It really is trial and error. Now I got all those views, but there wasn't much other than that. My adsense profits are only up a little.

    It takes time, the more hubs you throw out there the better, I wish I had someone making me hundreds smile

    1. snakebaby profile image72
      snakebabyposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      In your shoes, thanks! Interestingly, just spoke to my husband who lost his job two months ago, that it'd be great if he could find more time and think about good ideas, and even prepare something so I could publish 6 hubs everyday, then money would come in ten years. He just laughed sad

  9. tristam15 profile image60
    tristam15posted 14 years ago

    Ok, I get that I need more hubs however, how do I know if my hub/article is doing its job right? There must be something I can do to improve quality of hubs or know if low quality hubs are the reason for many people leaving so soon.

    I won't know if my hubs are good unless someone tells me something about them.

    Can any of you experienced hubbers just take a look and give me your perspective on my hubs and how they compare to money making high quality hubs?

    Thanks

    1. WryLilt profile image85
      WryLiltposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Obviously you are concerned that the high bounce rate and the low amount of traffic are connected. I'd recommend you completely forget about bounce rate for now - it's not your problem.

      I have about 1000 hits per day and my bounce rate is usually in the low 90s - and I still average $3-$5 per day.

      Learn about keyword research and look at other hubs on the site for ideas as to how to improve your own.

      1. tristam15 profile image60
        tristam15posted 14 years agoin reply to this

        We'll i've done a ton of keyword research and I know exactly how to do it.

        I've got that bounce rate doesn't matter much after all the posts in this thread.

        The only question I ask now is I wanna know if the hubs I'm publishing are good quality or not. Because, there is no income from all of these hubs I'm publishing, and I don't know if I'm on the right track.

        Can you give me some advice on this?

        1. WryLilt profile image85
          WryLiltposted 14 years agoin reply to this

          It would be best to place one or two links to some hubs on the extreme hub makeover forum for feedback.

          I have another account just for product hubs and most of them get about 1-5 hits per day each on average and go up from there. Maybe you need to try different keywords or ones with less competition?

  10. Pcunix profile image82
    Pcunixposted 14 years ago

    No income?  As in zero, or as in not enough that it would matter?

    I took a very quick look at a few and although some assaulted me with too many pictures, I saw nothing horribly wrong with them.  As Wrylilt said, you should take some to Extreme Hub Makeover for specific advice.

    You said "low traffic".  What's that mean to you? Less than 50 across all hubs?  Less than 500?  If your income is in the expected $2-$5 per thou range, your only problem is traffic.

    1. WryLilt profile image85
      WryLiltposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      tristam15posted 23 hours ago in reply to this

      The avg visitors per day are  8.74  Visits / Day.

      1. tristam15 profile image60
        tristam15posted 14 years agoin reply to this

        In addition, when I filter down to the city level of who is viewing my pages, most of the traffic is  only from my city(Hyderabad, India) and I doubt anyone else in my city is looking for the info I'm posting on,.

        Maybe not all of them but on most of my new hubs I'm seeing no traffic, the hubs are not listed in Google so maybe I'm expecting too much too early.

        There has been a 3 month inactive period from June to Oct wherein I posted no hubs and the hubs I made in June are receiving good traffic compared to the others.

        Most of the new hubs are not yet ranked in Google, perhaps it's because they are merely two weeks old because I've done enough back linking for them to rank..

        Is there any poor grammar in my hubs? Anything that you guys noticed that I can improve upon something that jumps out?

        I've gotten some feedback that they're off-topic is this true? What would your experience be if you looked at my hubs?

        1. WryLilt profile image85
          WryLiltposted 14 years agoin reply to this

          As suggested, please post one or two in the extreme hub makeover forum.
          Much as I would like to read all your hubs, there are literally dozens of deserving hubbers who also ask for advice and I don't have time to do in depth editing or feedback on all of them.

          And my 45 sales hubs on my other account don't get a single backlink. Yet they get google love and have already had some decent sales on Amazon.

          If the topic isn't a good one, then no amount of backlinking can improve that.

  11. Susana S profile image92
    Susana Sposted 14 years ago

    One thing I notice straight away is that you have very few tags. Read this hub on how to maximize traffic through tagging.

    In general I would say add as many relevant tags as you are allowed to.

    Also I suggest removing outgoing links from the first paragraph.

    And is there a reason you have no amazon capsules on your product hubs? I just read one hub about a particular keyboard, but there are no amazon products on there.

    My own experience shows that longer hubs do better in the search engines, and I usually go for 750 words minimum. Maybe think about adding more text.

    1. tristam15 profile image60
      tristam15posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you for this feedback, now this is what I was looking for, clear tips on what I can do to improve.

      I'll look into increasing the length of the hubs. I'm definitely going to add amazon code to my hubs.

      I'm also removing outgoing links from my first paragraphs. Is there any particular reason to doing this?

      Thanks a ton Susana.

      1. Susana S profile image92
        Susana Sposted 14 years agoin reply to this

        Hey tristam, you're welcome smile

        The reason to remove links from the first few paragraphs is because ideally you want a visitor to leave your page via an adsense ad or amazon link.

  12. 2besure profile image80
    2besureposted 14 years ago

    I always wondered about a high bounce rate.  Mine is about 70.8, but has been higher.  I guess you don't want them to stay on one hub, but rather click on some of your referral links to you other hubs too.

  13. tristam15 profile image60
    tristam15posted 14 years ago

    I'd like to thank each and every one of you who has taken their time to help me out it's a fantastic resource for a newbie like me.

    Thanks a lot

    Cheers,

    Tristam15

  14. DiGGrowth profile image42
    DiGGrowthposted 22 months ago

    Not much more experienced than you in terms of time, but I am a stats woman so thought I would chuck in my 10 cents.
    The bounce rate by itself is meaningless. You must assess it in light of your income and time horizon.
    For instance:
    They enjoyed your material and found more because of the low bounce rate and the lengthy visitation period
    They arrive at the hub, see a nice-looking ad, and leave right away. You should be glad since you get paid for their leaving. High bounce rate + short duration + high income = they leave right away.
    Long duration, poor income, and a high bounce rate all indicate missed sales chances. If they are reading the entire hub but choosing to exit via the close or back button rather than clicking on an

 
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