Decipher the mysterious 'bounce rate'

The metric, "bounce rate" is one of those metrics that people tend to stumble across almost immediately when they start using Google Analytics. The "bounce rate" is also one of those mysterious metrics because we constantly run into professionals who can't quite explain what it really is. The typical explanation as to what a bounce rate is, is when someone arrives at a website, doesn't interact and moves away from the website. In other words, the person bounced away from the website without engaging. So, for all intensive purposes, the higher your bounce rate, the less engaged/interested people are with your website. But is this enough, is simply seeing a 30% bounce rate in Google Analytics enough to assist you in any regard? What about "time on site", isn't that another mysterious metric that doesn't really offer up much value? Both of these metrics are dangerous, drawing conclusions from them can really lead you down a risky path. So, today we're going to tell you about two Google Analytics plugins that will decipher these metrics a little more, and allow you to access some data that will assist with making clear and calculated decisions when dealing with bounce rates and "average time on site". Riveted - This Google Analytics plugin runs on your website and listens for mouse movements, scrolling, clicks and keyboard activity. These statistics are then visible in your Google Analytics account to get a better set of data. For technical folk, you can visit their site and link up the JavaScript. For less technical folk, you'll be really pleased to know that there is a WordPress plugin available for this. This is an essential plugin for anyone who takes their audience seriously and is interested in increasing engagement.

Scroll Depth - Scroll Depth was created by the same author as Riveted, Rob Flaherty clearly knows his stuff and knows how to provide us with really useful tools. The concept is simple, Scroll Depth allows you to measure how far down a page a person scrolls. This provides you with insight into whether people are arriving on your site and bouncing immediately, or are they scrolling and then bouncing. This information is priceless, user experience folk would thoroughly enjoy this! If you have any questions, please leave us a comment and we'll see how we can assist you.