What can I do if a visitor bounces?

1. 68

   simeonvisserposted 13 years ago

   In Google Analytics I see many keywords that are relevant and that my articles should relate to but the bounce rate is 100% and the time on the site is 0.00. What can I do to figure out what those people were looking for but did not find?
   
   As far as I can see some of them are a direct match to what the search was about.

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   1. 61

      Cmbeverlyposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Change your perception of the data. Just because people are coming to your site doesn't mean they will stay. You need to have content on your site that people are actively looking for otherwise they wont bother to stay. Are your articles formatted for the internet as in are they easily scanned? People have very short attention spans so you need to make sure your site is visually appealing as well as informative. Also check your copy for typos and grammatical errors as these small details can destroy your sites credibility. There are so many different ways to optimize your site to be "sticky" to readers but without knowing your niche it's hard to completely answer your question. If you want I can look it over for you and make recommendations just  contact me and I can help.

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   2. 0

      ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      When a visitor leaves your hubpage via an adsense unit or capsule, that is a bounce too.
      
      Sometimes a high bounce rate can be positive, if they are leaving in the right ways.
      
      A low bounce rate suggests that visitors are leaving your Hubpage to another page on this site, that is all.
      
      A one page visit is a bounce, even if they stay on your page for 5 minutes.

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   3. 90

      Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      If your hub is a direct match, you might very well expect a high bounce rate. They found what they needed and left.
      
      For HubPages, the only places I care about bounce rate are on my profile page and on those few hubs that are part of a tightly linked series where I would expect a reader might read the next or previous of the group.  Even in those groups, I don't expect it to be very low because each hub can stand alone also.
      
      Other than that, bounce and exit stats are unimportant here.  I'd get upset if my profile showed a high rate, but other than that, I don't even look at it.

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2. 68

   Peter Hogganposted 13 years ago

   As far as HubPages is concerned, the time spent reading your articles can only be calculated if someone moves from one of your hubs to another one of your hubs - i.e two hubs that share the same analytics code. The time is based on the difference between timestamps that are created when you land on each page.
   
   If someone clicks on an Adsense ad or a link that takes them to another author’s hub a second timestamp required to calculate dwell time cannot be accessed, well not in the data contained in your analytics account, therefore time spent on a page be set to 0.00.
   
   If you have hubs about similar topics link them together, not only will this help rankings somewhat and improve the accuracy in reporting both bounce rate and increase time spent on site.

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   1. 79

      Aficionadaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      This is really good information to know!

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3. 68

   simeonvisserposted 13 years ago

   Thanks everyone, I didn't realize that leaving to any other page that is not mine is also stored as a bounce. In that case a bounce to an advertisement or to another hub that does not have my Analytics code is not that bad (although they should go to one of my hubs if they are interlinked).
   
   I have interlinked hubs about the same topic and I'll continue to do so because I've heard that helps in building more traffic. I've now learned that this is also good for improving my Analytics statistics, that's a good thing! This is really a helpful platform to learn more about writing online content and making money from ads
   
   @Cmbeverly: As far as I know my articles are properly divided into capsules with headers and bullet points to make scanning possible. I think the main reason the time on the site stays 0.00 with a bounce rate of 100% is that they found what they needed and left - i.e., it cannot be measured because they didn't go to one of my other pages here.

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   1. 69

      thisisoliposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      A bounce to another hub is still a bounce. You no longer have the visitor in your 'network' so it is kind of a bad thing! The benefit is if they are leaving to one of your external sites!

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      1. 68

         simeonvisserposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Right, I'll see although I must say that sometimes someone else's hub is much better to link to. I'll see what I can do to keep the hubs informative while also keeping the people in my own region of HubPages content.

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         1. 69

            thisisoliposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            If you link to another users hub use the tracking ID< that way i think you still get a percentage of ad impressions over time, not much but it all helps!

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4. 60

   paradigmsearchposted 13 years ago

   A non-issue.

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