Yesterday I posted about the [intlink id="blazing-minds-sudden-boost-website" type="post"]increase in website traffic[/intlink] that my blog had received and how StumbleUpon had helped this increase, but after reading some of the comments made, I decided to see what effect some of the social bookmarking sites had on my blogs bounce rate.
So, I logged into my Google Analytics to find out some information on the referring sites over the past month and to see what was happening with the bounce rates.
Suffice to say I wasn’t really that surprised with the results and as you can see from below, it’s quite obvious that some of the social bookmarking websites have a problem with those that “click and run”
- StumbleUpon – Bounce Rate = 91.89%
- FaceBook – Bounce Rate = 85.92%
- Digg – Bounce Rate = 62.50%
The sites which did surprise me on a lower bounce rate were:
- Twitter – Bounce Rate = 60.50%
- BlogEngage – Bounce Rate = 53.12%
- BloggerLuv – Bounce Rate = 48.08%
- Bloggers – Bounce Rate = 55.17%
I now which are the top sites that I’ll be posting my links to in the future 
So don’t get caught up in posting to the big networks of social bookmarking websites, it seems that the big sites have a lot of users that just click on a link and move away from it very quickly, where as site such as BlogEngage and BloggerLuv have such a brilliant collection of friendly bloggers that appreciate the effort that goes into blogging that they stop and read for a while and even comment on a few posts in one visit, no need to mention names here as you know who you are
My overall response to all this is join a website like the four mentioned above and take part with other bloggers, it all pays of in the end as some of the other sites may indeed damage your website bounce rate.
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Tags: bookmarking websites, Bounce Rate, improve your bounce rate, reduce my bounce rate, social bookmarking websites
Entries (RSS)
Twitter: Stephen_D
says:
I guess it just goes to show the importance of quality traffic. It is nice to be Stumbled or Dugg, but in the long run, that kind of traffic may not be the best kind of traffic for your blog to receive.
Stephen recently posted..Why bloggers should give a sht about search engine optimization
Twitter: BlazingMinds
says:
You’re right, it play havoc with a blogs bounce rate in the long term and this is one of the factors that advertisers take into consideration.
Twitter: titan7585
says:
That’s a problem with the big sites like Digg and SU. They are sooo big that there’s no sense of community unless you can become someone popular. On the other hand, sites like Blog Engage and BloggerLuv put their focus on community first. We participate in these sites to network with others, not just for voting up and down.
Sourav recently posted..TnB Weekend Blog Revisit 4
Twitter: BlazingMinds
says:
I’ve always been a fan of BlogEngage and BloggerLuv and I do believe that they are indeed the best communities for bloggers
Twitter: DanielSharkov
says:
It is no wonder that sites like Stumbleupon have such high bounce rates. People are there just to browse different webpages and they don’t tend to read an article or look a blog more closely. Your Twitter results are a bit surprising to me, since the bounce rate is not bad at all, which I would not really expect for that type of site. Thanks for sharing the stats!
Daniel Sharkov recently posted..Monetizing your Blog – The Less Ads the Better
Twitter: BlazingMinds
says:
Thanks for stopping by and commenting
Twitter: techwalls
says:
It’s great that you could turn ideas in comments into a new post.
What most bloggers forget about when trying to increase traffic for their site, is that they should be targeting their traffic to drive in a higher quality. That’s why I love social networking for bloggers like blogengage.
Tuan recently posted..How to Set Up WordPress Site for Mobile Devices
Twitter: BlazingMinds
says:
It’s a method I use quite often, some comments are full of new post ideas
Twitter: TechPatio
says:
I guess it depends what you’re looking to get. Sometimes 3000 visitors from Stumbleupon that does a little over 3000 pageviews might be better than 1500 visitors from another site, that does a little over 3000 pageviews as well.
Klaus recently posted..Review- Bose QuietComfort 15 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones
Twitter: sweetsfoods
says:
As a big user of SU my bounce rate is a little lower but high anyway. It depends of the SU users and the quality of your followers.
BE is a great community – there is no surprise with the result.
My worst bounce rate came from the drops of EC, there is no surprise either with that also
Have a great week!
Gera
Gera recently posted..Social Media Tips- Blogging – Writing- Food Blogs- Best of this Week
Twitter: BlazingMinds
says:
Maybe I should try to find some quality followers on StumbleUpon
Twitter: extremejohn
says:
I cant say that the StumbleUpon bounce rate surprises me, it’s right in there with the likes of Entrecard
Extreme John recently posted..Tan for the Rest of the Year ONLY 69
Twitter: tycoonblogger
says:
Quaility traffic is the key. I have given up on stumble, digg, entrecard,adgitive and all the other crappy traffic out there. My main focus is blogengage and mmosocialnetwork..I have found similar bounce rates of less than 50% with those sites.
dan keller recently posted..Are you using these 5 story telling secrets in your business
Twitter: BlazingMinds
says:
I must submit more often to MMOSocialNetwork, I keep forgetting to do it
Twitter: colleenlane
says:
Suffice to say I wasn’t really that surprised with the results and as you can see from below, it’s quite obvious that some of the social bookmarking websites have a problem with those that “click and run”
I’m thinking focus more attention on search engine (organic) traffic Karen.
Colleen recently posted..2010 Sausage Fest Christ The King Richland Washington
Twitter: BlazingMinds
says:
I am doing at the moment, I’m working even more on my SEO for my blog titles etc
Twitter: ahardrain
says:
There are so many things that analytics can show you. I used to get all caught up into bounce rate and time on site, how many page views, etc. But I stopped caring after to much thinking on my part. The better the stats in many of these areas require lots of time you must spend blogging and well real life kicks in and you only have so much time in the day left to blog. I just try the best I can and leave the analytics to those who are really into them. My one area I do look at if visits, because in the end if you have people who come regularly and read everything that’s great. But you only reached 5 people. Now if I get 5000 people the odds that 10 of them will hang out and read more then one post is much more likely, even though 4990 of them read one post quickly and leave. That is pretty much what the internet has spawned, browsers. Readers are the ones that still prefer a book or magazine then a blog. IMHO
Man Over Board recently posted..Boost Mobile’s Flexibility- Ranks As Our Top Pick!
Twitter: BlazingMinds
says:
Many thanks for you big input
Twitter: hivehealthmedia
says:
Karen, I’ve noticed the same high bounce rate with Stumble Upon on pretty much all of my sites. For me, I imagine that’s because I often click the Stumble Upon button on new posts on my blogs, but haven’t done any actual social networking with their site.
I’ve noticed that I seem to get 2 hits right away which are probably from their spiders or something. These two hits always have a 100% bounce rate, so they contribute to the problem. I guess it might be different if you have a more active or effective Stumble account than I do.
Jarret recently posted..L-arginine supplementation enhances exercise tolerance
Twitter: jronaldlee
says:
Would not have expected Digg and StumbleUpon to be so different in bounce rates… or to see a large gap between Twitter and Facebook (with Twitter winning).
Thanks for the insight.
James recently posted..Life’s Short
Twitter: daclements
says:
I’m not the least bit surprised by your results. I found similar results myself. After all, SU is essentially random whereas Blogengage et al are interactive.
P.S Your “Exit Mobile Edition” link doesn’t work, on iPhone 4 at least
Dave recently posted..Add a Facebook Like Button to Your Site in 2 Minutes
Twitter: DennisEdell
says:
You’ve solidified my desire for a future case study; perhaps someone wants to test it now…
I recently read a brilliant article, not recalling where, sorry.
The gist was, again, does bounce rate really matter, is it really bad? No not always. Sometimes the higher the better.
It all depends on the landing page.
Bounce rate = hitting one page and clicking away, right? Well, for example, what if it’s an affiliate promotion post?
Do you then want to see stats of hours on the blog? or perhaps you’d rather they read, click, buy, and leave.
I’ll leave you with that…
Dennis Edell recently posted..The Official DEDC-Network Comment Policy
Twitter: BlazingMinds
says:
Nicely put across there Dennis
Those were my thoughts as well – a high bounce rate is not always bad as long as the visitors accomplish what you have intended for that page whether that is clicking an ad or an affiliate offer etc.. Although for bloggers building that long term “community” of regular visitors it is much more beneficial long term to have an audience that returns and interacts with many pages on the site. (as long as you also have a good number of people interacting with the money making aspects of your site as well.
)
Chris recently posted..1971 Plymouth Road Runner for Sale
Twitter: BlazingMinds
says:
Your right, having those that regular visit is beneficial in the long term for myself and besides, I love reading everyone’s comments
Karen recently posted..Improve Your Alexa Ranking with the Official Alexa Chrome Extension
Twitter: TrevorBReed
says:
It depends on what you are looking for. With your blog, a high bounce rate is bad and it makes sense that quality is better than quantity. With a search engine, you will expect a high bounce rate. Thanks for the interesting research spelled out in a comprehensive way.
Twitter: BlazingMinds
says:
Glad to be of some interest
Twitter: Ileane
says:
Hey Karen, I need to pay more attention to the bounce rates from each referring site. But sometimes I think these things can be misleading. For example, would a high bounce rate from Stumble Upon influence you to remove the widget? Probably not.
Really the whole point of Google Analytics is to take action on the information that you get out of it, so in this case since you’re probably not going to make any changes as far as Stumble Upon I would just ignore it for now. But when you get a high bounce rate from a site like Entrecard it’s easy to decide to just get rid of it. Smart move.
Thanks for sharing your stats and valuable insights.
Ileane recently posted..Exploring Stats on Blogger in Draft
Twitter: BlazingMinds
says:
Thanks for commenting Ileane, I do try to be helpful every so often
Twitter: noaspa
says:
Hi Karen,
Interesting stuff – and I think it confirms at least one thing that we already know….
BlogEngage is a brilliant community.
Cheers
Will
Will recently posted..Noaspa News – 08092010
Twitter: bizchickblogs
says:
Hey Karen,
Thanks for the post – because it reminds me that I need to take the Stumble badge off my site. My SU bounce rate is also high, at 88.63%, and I hate it. I don’t know why people (including myself) still use it for blogging. I like it for other things, like pictures and recipes (which I guess is included in blogging) but ultimately I don’t think it does anything good for my blog.
It’s to the point where I am considering using a special redirect just for SU visits. And taking the badge off will probably greatly reduce SU traffic altogether. It wouldn’t be such a big deal, but since most of my traffic in terms of % comes from SU, it drags my bounce rate down and I don’t like that.
Anyway, sorry for the rant. LOL All done now.
Tia recently posted..What the &! To Swear or Not to Swear
Twitter: Witty_Money
says:
Thanks for the post, Karen! Interesting and useful things. The big bounce rate from the famous sites you’ve mentioned may be useful on short term, for it may bring potential readers; but I guess it can also damage in the long run. Cause a quality oriented blog will always finds its way through.