Improve Your Google AdWords Quality Score - The PPC Chain

The beauty of pay-per-click advertising (in particular, Google AdWords) is that it's entirely possible for smaller businesses with lower budgets to compete with advertisers working with a six figure monthly budget. In their quest to always provide the most relevant results to end users, Google will reward advertisers that structure their PPC campaigns in a logical manner, via a higher Quality Score - with a higher Quality Score, your ads will appear in a higher position and at a lower cost-per-click compared to advertisers working with a low score.

A proper understanding of the Google AdWords hierarchy is key to this, but first we'll examine the elements that your campaign has to have in place to increase conversions; that is, the idea that there are three important items under your control that must align with user intent and expectation. If any step in this "PPC Chain" breaks, the user flits away like a distracted hummingbird, leaving you footing the bill for their visit with no conversion to show for it.

Whenever a user searches on Google, they have a clear end goal in mind - whether it's product research before buying all the way to actually making a purchase, there is an objective. Your job as an advertiser is to provide them with that information via these three items:

1. Search query - this step in the PPC Chain is essentially proper keyword research - the answer to the question, "What are my potential customers typing into Google?" Volumes have been written on this subject, but for a conversion-focused PPC campaign, your keywords should be the ones entered when a user is ready to buy. This will save unnecessary clicks (and ad spend) from visitors that are still far too early in the buying process to actually make a purchase decision.
2. Your ad - The placement and text of your ad plays a large role in the chain. Within the landscape of a Google search results page, your message has to cut through a lot of noise - other PPC ads, the natural or organic search results, Google Images results, Google Product results, YouTube videos, Google News results, etc. The text and headline of your PPC ad must be as specific as possible to the user's search query (step 1 in the chain), but also provide an incentive or selling proposition that tells the user why they should click on your ad rather than the 25 other results provided. 
3. Your landing page - Where does the visitor go after they click on your ad? Generally speaking, your website's homepage is not the best landing page. Remember, specificity is important here! Don't make me dig through your website to find the specific product I'm searching for - just take me there!

All three steps of the PPC Chain must align with user intent - if this chain breaks at any point, the chances of a conversion happening dramatically decrease.

Let's put this in context with an example. Let's say you're a PPC specialist for Amazon.com, camera division. How can you work through the 3 steps in the PPC Chain?

1. Search Query - If I'm considering purchasing a digital camera, and you sell digital cameras, this is a very good keyword for you to bid on. For one, it clearly shows what stage of the buying process I'm in! I haven't typed in "best digital camera" or even "nikon d3000 reviews" - no, I've made my decision and now I'm ready to spend money, dang it.

At this point, the user has clearly showed their intent - they're expecting Google's search results to transport them to their end point or objective of buying this camera.

2. Your ad - Specificity is the key here. Ideally, your ad will incorporate the search query in its entirety - when displaying PPC ads, Google will bold the words in your ad that match words within the search query. Again, in the highly competitive landscape of a search results page, you want to take any opportunity to can to increase the visibility of your ad.


This ad shown hits the key points - the specific product is called out within the ad copy. Rather than saying "Digital cameras for sale", the ad specifically calls out Nikon, and even better, the exact model I'm trying to buy. Note also that the destination URL contains the brand as well - this further reassures me that when I click this ad, I'll go to a specific page and not a generic homepage. Amazon gets bonus points here as well for including an incentive! I like free shipping. :)

3. Landing Page - the final step, where the user goes within your website, is a critical point in the process. An advertiser can have a great keyword list, awesome ad copy, then utterly break everything by sending a user to a list of products or, even worse, their homepage.

[Another mistake that many service industries make - taking users directly to your contact us page. This is like asking someone out by walking up to them and handing them your home address. A bit presumptuous, we think. :) ]

Similar to steps 1 and 2, we could talk all day about landing page quality, but generally you want to make sure that your page conforms to good design practices (IE, loads quickly, doesn't redirect users or attempt to install malicious software), has relevant & original content and addresses any expectations given by the ad copy. If you say free shipping, make sure your page says it!

With a proper understanding of the PPC Chain, you can properly structure your Google AdWords account to make this process run seamlessly for your pay-per-click visitors - apply this to your campaign and Ad Group structure to ensure that the proper search queries generate relevant and valuable ads, and that those ads take users to the most specific, conversion-focused landing page possible.

We'll discuss how to apply this framework to your account in a later blog post, but in the meantime, what are some examples of how you've best applied this process? Any horror stories on how this process can break down?

Google Analytics, Marketing Campaigns & Conversion Attribution

In the words of web analytics commando Avinash Kaushik, "I humbly believe that the world of data perfection ("clean auditable data") does not exist any more." And he's right! In the interests of moving away from data regurgitation and towards drawing actionable conclusions in the sea of web analytics and statistics, the first step should be the realization that even today, with all the cool gadgets at our disposal, web analytics data is imperfect and inherently flawed.

I mention this not to provide an excuse for incorrect conclusions and strategy ("If only that tracking code was installed correctly on my blog, I would've known to avoid using flashing strobe banner ads!"), but rather as a step towards analytics enlightenment. Yes, data may be flawed, but this should be your call to arms - find out how the data is flawed (or, stated another way, the limitations of the data set) and what you can do, as an analyst, to draw real-world conclusions from these numbers.

Here's an example. To let you identify high/low performing marketing efforts, Google Analytics will automatically track the source of visitors to your site. These are segmented into a few default mediums.

Check out the first row. The "cpc" segment captures traffic from "cost per click" or "pay per click" campaigns, such as Google AdWords. From here, you can see how many visitors that clicked through from your pay-per-click ad actually bought something from you, filled out a lead-generation form, etc.

But! You now know that this data has issues. Remember, your newfound acceptance of this axiom shouldn't be an excuse, a crutch to lean on; instead, this should inspire you to dig deeper and not take these numbers at face value.

And here's why: there's a specific way in which Google attributes things like conversions and e-commerce transactions to traffic sources. Let's say a user visits your website several different times via several different mediums, and finally buys something or completes a conversion. How do you know which of these mediums drove that purchase? With one exception*, in Google Analytics, conversions are attributed to the most recent campaign or medium by which that user arrived. For example:

1. Due to a recent break-in at her home, Jane Customer is shopping for broadswords. To begin her buying research, she searches for "home defense broadswords" on Google. From the results page, Jane clicks on a PPC ad for ADT's line of security swords. She browses the site for a while, checks out prices, but does not make a purchase - Jane wants to check out some other brands and options.
2. After sifting through the highly competitive landscape of medieval residential defense products, Jane settles on ADT and clicks on one of their banner advertisements on her Yahoo homepage. She arrives on ADT's site and makes her purchase.

In this example, it's fairly clear that Jane's first visit, via ADT's pay-per-click campaign, was probably most responsible for generating this sale! However, the purchase actually occurred on her second visit, when she arrived via a referral site - her Yahoo homepage. Google Analytics will attribute this purchase as being generated by a referral visit from Yahoo...and all the while your PPC conversion rate sadly continues to drop, bit by bit.

Uh-oh. So how flawed is your data? Can you make a serious business decision regarding the effectiveness of any given marketing campaign, based off incorrect or incomplete information? (Or as Mr. Kaushik would say, the "known unknowns"!) In terms of severity, this can be a serious issue if you're selling a product that's fairly expensive, fairly complex, or otherwise has a high-involvement buying process - every time a potential customer returns to your site, whether to continue researching or to purchase, their previous traffic source data is being overwritten!

(*The exception! For repeat visitors that return directly via a bookmark or typing the URL directly into their browser, Analytics will attribute any conversions to the immediate preceding traffic source. In the example above, if Jane's 2nd visit to ADT was from a bookmark or simply recalling the URL from her first PPC-sourced visit, the conversion would still be attributed to the PPC campaign.)

So for e-commerce sites with these high-involvement/long buying cycle products, or sites with a very high Visits-To-Purchase ratio, analysts may want to direct Analytics to ignore these secondary campaigns and attribute any conversions to the first campaign that directed the visitor to your site. With links under your control (such as banner ads, external blogs, or links posted on your company Twitter account), simply append the variable "&utm_nooverride=1" to the URL. This will prevent the original traffic source from being overwritten, thereby preserving the origin of each visitor. (For more info on Google Analytics tracking variables, see our post on Tracking Facebook, Twitter & Social Networks in Google Analytics.)

Is this solution perfect? No way. But this knowledge of inherent error is what should keep you nimble as an analytics commando. The idea that you can always learn more and refine your conclusions...this is what keeps us on our toes.

Google Analytics Link Tagging Tool / URL Builder from BEM Interactive

Hey all - just a quick heads-up that BEM Interactive's URL builder tool for Google Analytics is now available. Using this, you can tag inbound links in your newsletters, banners, non-AdWords PPC, etc, so Google identifies and categorizes the visitors correctly (you can read more about that in our previous post on using Analytics to track non-Google marketing & advertising).

We assume no responsibility if you mis-tag your links! But there are some instructions to go with the tool - so go nuts with our Google Analytics URL tagging tool.

Affiliate Marketing, Pay-Per-Post Blogging, and the End of Social Networking?

Mitch Joel over at Six Pixels of Separation posted a great blog the other day discussing paid links and pay-per-post blogging in Twitter. In a nutshell, it's when companies pay avid bloggers or established social networking figures to post/blog/link to their product/site/whatever. Since social media sites thrive on accurate & credible word-of-mouth ("Oh, Joe thinks these sunglasses are cool and he's a pretty cool guy. Maybe I can get these sunglasses and be similarly awesome!"), these campaigns are much more effective without full and accurate disclosure on the part of the poster and/or advertiser.

In his post, Mitch pretty accurately sums up my feelings on the matter:



YES. I'm already weeping tears of joy that someone is with me on this, and then:



Awesome stuff, Mitch (the following is my comment on his blog).

One of the things I always attempt to pass on to clients is the genuine understanding and appreciation for XX Social Networking site (wherever they're trying to be). A lot of companies will assign the task to SOMEONE in-house in hopes that simply generating a presence on Facebook, Twitter, whatever, will help their company; of course, it DOESN'T, and sometimes ends up hurting the brand because of actions similar to the ones discussed in your post. There's NO overall strategy, NO matching of marketing objectives to the proper social media site (if there ARE any marketing objectives for the campaign), and ultimately, no understanding that for a social media effort to work, that company has to honestly contribute to and become part of the community.

As marketers, I really think we've got to be conscious of the personal effort people have put into constructing their social media personae and networks. To those folks, this ISN'T seeing a banner ad on CNN.com - affiliate linking (which, let's face it, is more credible/profitable if people think it's genuine and not a marketing campaign) and pay-per-post blogging is seen as an uninvited intrusion into the user's social network and personal life. I've heard dozens of stories of businesses diving headfirst into Facebook or blog networks and just RUINING their name by attempting some silly, heavy-handed traditional "push" campaign, or a poorly thought-out affiliate marketing design.

I don't think social networking will completely be destroyed by things like this, but it certainly will cause more user movement between different websites. Sites will build up buzz and momentum but ultimately, will be deserted as affiliate marketers, link farmers, what-have-you, follow the masses.

Great post Mitch, cheers.

Contact page audit

Have you looked at the contact page on your web site lately? Give it a quick audit. Here is a list of things to look for:

• Make sure you have a contact page and it's easy to get to from every page on your web site.
  
• Your contact page should have a form for people to fill out versus just mailto links to specific email accounts. Contact forms are easier for people to fill out, allow you to obtain consistent information from all contacts, and forms work for everyone (mailto links can sometimes cause problems with gmail and other web based email clients).
  
• Have fields for all the information you want people to provide. However, only require the minimum info you need to collect. Requiring too many fields to be entered can significantly decrease your conversion rate on this page. You can always find out the other info you need when you follow up with them.
  
• Clearly identify the fields you require to be filled out.
  
• Research shows that listing the fields in a one column format is easier for people to fill out and results in higher conversion rates.
  
• Try to keep the form and the submit button "above the fold" so people don't need to scroll to complete it.
  
• Be sure to list your address, phone and other related contact data on the contact us page.
  
• Consider adding directions, links to GoogleMaps or provide users ability to SMS - text message directions to their mobile phone.
  
• Audit the page visitor get once they fill out the form, oftentimes referred to as the "thank you page". It should say thanks and set expectations for when you will be contacting them. Consider adding graphics and links to key pages on your site.
  
• If you are using Google Analytics, set this page up as a goal or funnel (as appropriate). Keep an eye on how many people get to this page and how many complete this page.
  
• Do some A/B testing and make adjustments to layout and content on this page to improve the results. Improvements on this page can deliver big returns.

Mobile Website 101 - Making Your Site (gasp) USEFUL!

It goes without saying that mobile search and data usage is exploding - Comscore reports that in 2008, 20.8 million U.S. subscribers used a search function from their mobile device. "But wait," you might say. "That's only 9.2% of total U.S. cellular service subscribers!" That's true (and strangely accurate!), but it's a whopping 68% more than 2007! Revenues and ad spend are dramatically increasing as well, and as more and more mobile devices ship with full HTML-capable web browsers included, you can expect to see the dividing line between traditional web search and mobile use blur and overlap.

Clearly, this is a venue that any forward-thinking company needs to appear in. But rather than simply throwing their current website's content into a mobile-friendly format, how can businesses take advantage of this new medium in a strategic way? Hmm - the wind is just right for a checklist!

1. The Biggest Mistake. DO NOT DO NOT simply throw your entire website at mobile users. If you own a car dealership, there's no reason to slow down the visitor's site experience by steering them towards a testimonials page. That's great for your traditional website, where visitors will spend more time browsing around, but for mobile pages, you want to keep the focus on fast, easily actionable content. Ask yourself: why would people need to get to your site on a mobile phone? Think of time-sensitive issues - in the above car dealership example, why not offer a form to schedule maintenance? How about an option to sign up for a SMS (text) campaign to remind customers of oil changes and tire rotations? Remember...
2. Your site is not a billboard. This is actually really important to traditional websites as well, but essential to mobile sites. Your site has to actually offer something of perceived value, otherwise...no traffic! No one would voluntarily sign up for longer commercial breaks on TV - why would they go to your site unless it gives them something that they need? Tone down the sales pitch and focus on offering users something that will benefit them more immediately.
3. Functional issues - not everyone has an iPhone! Eventually, mobile web browsers will be powerful enough to navigate every website in the same way your PC's browser does - but it's not there yet. While it's true that most users of smartphones (iPhone, Blackberry, etc.) spend a great deal of time browsing on their device, only designing your site for them is ignoring a huge portion of potential visitors. Some basic functional guidelines:
   -No Javascript, such as in navigation menus; some handsets don't render this correctly.
   -No Flash elements, pop-ups or other graphically-intense objects - remember, you want your site to be FAST.
   -Include numbers by each navigation option for users navigating via their phone's keypad. It's much easier to hit "7" rather than the "down" arrow 6 times.
   -Make sure text is big enough to be read on smaller displays. Keep scrolling (horizontal and vertical) to a minimum.
   
4. Who are you targeting? Google likes to divide mobile users into 3 distinct categories, based on usage patterns. What can you offer these groups? Keep in mind, there is a bit of overlap here - and, as always with mobile, your focus should be on easily accessible, relevant content.
   

• Repetitive Now - these folks are constantly checking the same places for the most recent info. These are things like stocks, sports scores, breaking news, etc.
• Bored Now - users that surf simply because there's nothing else to do. They're on the subway, the bus, the plane, that 3-hour accounting meeting. Games, trivia, and other easily digestible content really appeals to this group
• Urgent Now - the focus for these users is on functionality and efficiency; they need information NOW, with no frills or roadblocks. This can include things like weather, directions, and most local searches.

As always, the focus here is on strategic implementation - without a overall plan of what you want to offer and who you want to target, your mobile initiative could be crippled from the start.

PPC for seasonal campaigns

For segments of your business that are seasonal, PPC or Pay per Click is a better strategy to employ than SEO. Why? SEO (search engine optimization) takes a while to get results. For highly competitive markets it can take several months.

When you use an SEO strategy to get your web site ranked for seasonal keywords, it's possible that the season will come and go before you get your target keyphrases ranked. Then all your efforts will be in vain.

Better to use PPC for seasonal phrases. PPC is immediate. You can start a campaign and stop a campaign at a moments notice. It's also easy to adjust a PPC campaign mid-stream if you are not getting the results you need.

As you are putting together your web marketing strategy for Easter, Mother's Day and Father's Day, be sure to keep this in mind.

Bounce Rates Primer - Top 7 Common Issues and Solutions

Web marketers really like bounce rate data. And what's not to like? In the massive sea of data that analytics software can provide nowadays, the bounce rate for any given web page is one number that can immediately indicate a problem or a success. It works across all levels of visitor traffic, and can generally be applied to almost any website. As Malinda said in her previous post explaining bounce rates, it really is the golden metric - for a general overview of what constitutes a "bounce" and why it's a solid metric to use, definitely read through that first.

Now, as explained , when a visitor "bounces", they arrive at your website and immediately leave. It's usually a good indicator that whatever they saw, they didn't like. What I'd like to do in this post is go over some common causes of high bounce rates for certain pages, and some actions you can take to reduce these numbers.

Generally, a bounce rate over 40% - 45% is something you definitely want to check out. If people are treating your site like a trampoline, run through this list.

1. Remember your statistics class? Of course you do! Begin by applying a Bayesian inference model - OK, just kidding, but the big takeaway from stats is that you really need actionable, significant data. If you've got a 80% bounce rate on a page with 10 visits, don't freak out! Do some digging if need be, but drawing any sort of conclusion from such a small sample pool won't do you much good. Build up some data first!
   
   
2. Maybe it's NOT so bad. What's being displayed on the page in question? Remember, most analytics programs consider a visit to be a bounce if they don't click through to any other part of the site - it's entirely possible that the visitor got everything they came for without needing to browse deeper. You'll generally see high bounce rates for:
   -pages with an offline call-to-action (IE, a phone number)
   -pages that only link out to another domain (counted as a bounce, since the visitor is leaving www.yoursite.com)
   -pages that many people have set as their browser's homepage
   -blogs (most folks tune in to read the newer entries; for these, it's better to examine returning visitors vs. new visitors).
   
   
3. MAN that's ugly. For designers, this is always hard to take, but look at your site through a visitor's eyes - how attractive is the site? Look at color scheme, graphics, font size and choice, content placement, etc...does the site make you want to hang around? Could you remove maybe one or two of the flashing "CLICK THE BUTTON!" banner ads? Run it by your friends & co-workers to get some fresh eyes on it.
   
   
4. Functional Issues. Closely related to design, site usability is paramount! Some very basic features are still being ignored by some websites - is the navigation easy to use? Do links lead to functioning pages? Is the text size big enough to read? Does the logo at the top of the page lead back to the homepage?
   
   For a great general checklist covering details like these, check out Larisa Thomason's Web Site Usability Checklist over at NetMechanic.
   
   
5. Technical Issues. Perhaps the most basic, but still forgotten often! Does the page work? Find out what links/search engines are driving most of your visitors - then take that route yourself! If the page in question has dynamically-generated content, make sure the page is getting populated with the right information.
   
   And folks...it's 2009. Pop-ups, pop-unders, etc...let's just set aside that ugly chapter in web marketing and move along. Nothing to see here!
   
   
6. CONTENT. Really, after doing the housekeeping of the previous steps, this is what it comes down to. Most analytics software allows you to segment your visitors, so try to narrow down which sources are sending you traffic with the highest bounce rate:
   
   -For PPC traffic, make sure your keywords, ad text, and landing pages all align and are relevant to each other - the more they match, the better. If someone types in "tennis balls", make sure your displayed ad and the landing page are about tennis balls, not tennis rackets.
   -For visitors from organic search results, examine the keywords that visitors came in on. Make sure the page is optimized for the correct keywords. Most search engines are getting better about indexing pages correctly, but on-page content still has a lot to do with it; if folks are coming to your tennis balls page, make sure they're not finding it by typing in "tennis nets."
   -For traffic coming from links on other sites, be sure that your link is surrounded by the appropriate keywords and content. Your bounce rate for the tennis balls page is gonna be pretty high if someone gets there via a baseball equipment site.

These are some problems we look for right off the bat when we spot a high bounce rate. Run through this checklist thoroughly and hopefully you'll see that bounce rate drop!

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him submit a "Contact Us" form

...namely because they lack opposable thumbs and the capacity for higher thought. But in the realm of website contact forms, this is a problem many people face at some point. You've got the site, you've got the marketing campaigns, and you're seeing the traffic - so why aren't folks filling out your HTML forms? Where are the leads?

Google Analytics gives us any number of powerful tools to observe visitor behavior while they're browsing a website. If you're getting low bounce rates (hmm? Bounce rates explained by Malinda) and high average page views and time spent on your site, there may be something that's turning people off before they get around to providing their info. Here's a quick checklist to run through before you decide to abandon user-submitted lead generation forms ("Contact Us", "Request More Info", and so on).

Does it actually work?

Try and try again! A smart web designer already tests across multiple browsers and in multiple screen resolutions, but this applies to HTML form submissions as well. Run a few test submissions to make sure there's not a breakdown somewhere between the user's input and that data showing up in the right place.

Are your tracking codes inserted? Are they correct?

Leads and newsletter sign-ups are great, but they don't mean much if you can't track where they're coming from! If you're using an analytics package or tracking software that requires code to be inserted, make sure it's inserted in the right location in the page, and that all unique IDs are correct. One of the great things we do here at BEM Interactive is track leads from marketing campaign to conversion; for folks accustomed to the vague data provided by traditional advertising campaigns, this is a wonderful insight.

Sooo...what happens next?

There's nothing I hate more than filling out a form requesting more information and being sent...riiiight back to the site's homepage. Tell the user what they can expect - a phone call, an invite to a webinar, a pillow case embroidered with your company logo - whatever it is, let them know (and if possible, create anticipation for it).

Don't overdo it.

I know, I know - it's a lot easier to sell someone a new car if you know what they hate about their current one, but try to resist the temptation to ask visitors for too much information. They're already taking the time to provide you with potential revenue; the last thing you want to do is drive off potential customers once they've come this far. If you simply must have more information, then make sure to explain why you need it, but if possible, get the essential data and save the details for later on in the selling process.

And perhaps most important...

Where's the motivation?

Internet users have come a long way. Sure, people still fall for the deposed Nigerian prince scam e-mails, but most folks can spot a sales pitch from aways off. You wouldn't sign up for extra TV commercials or more billboards on your morning commute, so ask yourself: what am I offering people?

Invariably, the most popular websites are informative or entertaining, not sales pitches. It works the same way with user submission forms. Is there some incentive for people to send me their information? This can be almost anything, so check out what your competition is offering - then offer your visitors something better.

Online lead generation is a cornerstone of web marketing, so make sure you're doing all you can to utilize it. Follow this checklist and you'll show that horse who's boss.

Does your internal search deliver results?

A lot of time is spent focusing on Web marketing and search results from google, yahoo and msn. But what about “the other search”? Often referred to as the Interal Search function.

Assume someone lands on your web site. Granted, that’s the first step of the battle to conversion success. Did you know that when someone hits your web site most of the time they will use one of the following steps to begin exploring your web site?

o Use your primary navigation to browse thru your site
o Use your internal search engine
o Click on one of the Calls to Action on the page they landed on

Definition: “Internal Search engine”. This is the mechanism on your site that allows visitors to find something within your web site. Almost every site that has products has an internal search engine. Likewise most large sites have internal search engines too that allow visitors to find targeted content across multiple pages and files.

So, about half the time they will use the planned navigation paths you so carefully put in place. The other half of the time, they will simply forget about all that and type in your search box the word or words they are looking for.

Test your internal search and make sure it's delivering the results you would expect. Key in some phrases you think a visitor would enter. Are the results relevant. Do the products come up that you would expect? Do enough products / pages come up?

If you aren’t happy with the results, here are a few things to consider:

• Understand how your internal search engine works and what parts of your site it searches for. For products, it should look at your product title, short description, long description, and perhaps some hidden keyphrase areas.
  
• Review your product titles & descriptions. Are they packed with the phrases you would expect them to have? Oftentimes, some focused attention in this area will delivery huge benefits not only with your internal search but overall visitor conversions.
  
• If you have the ability to define some hidden keyphrases with your products, be sure to take advantage of this feature.
  
• Spending time on Product Merchandising, thus fine tuning the way you present and describe your products in your store, can provide a better shopping experience for your visitors and likely increase your site conversion rate.
  

Google Analytics Bounce Rate – The Golden Metric

Google Analytics is one of the best web analytics tools available. It provides so much information about your web site traffic and visitors. This is not only its strength, but can also be a hindrance to new users of Google Analytics.

There are so many really good metrics to look at you can easily get lost in the sea of information. But the Bounce Rate is by far the best metric for validating the content of your site and the relevance of your advertising campaigns.

So what does Google Analytics (GA) define as a “bounce”? If a visitor comes to your site and doesn’t look beyond the page they landed on, it’s considered a bounce. In essence, they took a peek at a single page on the site and decided this is not the place they wanted to be.

The Bounce Rate Percentage is simply a metric that compares the number of single page visits (bounces) to the total visits. GA gives you an overall bounce rate for your site; however, I find that looking at this metric at the page level is best.

What should your bounce rate be? Obviously every site is different and your bounce rate can vary depending on several factors. Generally a bounce rate of less than 30% shouldn’t give too much cause for alarm. Alternatively, a bounce rate in excess of 50% should send you hunting for the culprit. Again, look at your bounce rate at the page level, not the overall site level.

What can cause a high bounce rate?

• Poor content on the landing page
• Technical browser errors on the landing page
• Disconnect between an ad campaign promise and the content on the site
• Poor selection of target audience for an ad campaign

Start improving your bounce rate by picking 3 pages on your site with the highest bounce. Taking 3 or 4 pages at a time can keep this otherwise daunting task a bit less overwhelming.

(To explore bounce rates in more detail, check out Jeremy's blog Bounce Rate Primer: 7 Common Issues or contact us today.)