I’m not sure what to do with this stat, but it seems interesting enough to share. Google Analytics has been collecting data (anonymously, with opt-out) across its user base, and a round of global stats arrived in my inbox this morning. Here’s what I thought was worth noting:
| Traffic Sources | Pages / Visit | Bounce Rate | Avg Time on Site |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct | 4.0 (-0.5) | 47.2% (-4.0%) | 5:21 (-0:07) |
| Referral | 5.0 (+0.1) | 43.1% (-1.1%) | 6:36 (-1:48) |
| Organic Search | 4.9 (-0.1) | 47.9% (-1.1%) | 4:43 (+0:06) |
| CPC Search | 5.6 (+0.0) | 41.4 (-1.7%) | 3:57(+0:07) |
It’s hard to generalize across all types of sites, but from the looks of things, people who get to a website through direct (“I want to go here”) and referral (“some site said I should go here”) spend significantly more time on the site than people who were driven through search engines and pay per click advertising.
That would be the end of the lesson, but then there’s the bounce rate stat, which measures how many users leave the site without visiting any other pages (i.e., “this isn’t interesting, I’m gonna bounce out of here.”) Organic search is the highest, which makes sense, because as good as Google thinks it is, I often visit 5 or 6 sites before I find the thing I’m looking for (Google, it’s not you, it’s me; I could probably put in better search terms.) CPC ads are the lowest for bounces, which also makes sense to me, since these are usually sales-related and the searcher is predisposed to buying, or so the theory goes. The only way I can explain direct being the worst for bounce is that there are a lot of “check and leave” sites, like weather, lotto numbers, etc that people have bookmarked and just want to review a quick item and go.
More importantly though, is how time and site and bounce rate vary by traffic source for your website. The stats above are for every type of website that’s running Analytics, which is a pretty darned wide range. Your results can and will vary. Time on site and bounce have more relevance, all by themselves, for advertising-driven sites, but if you’ve got specific goals (sale of a product, signup to a newsletter, getting a specific video watched) then set up some goals and see how those four traffic sources measure up against your own benchmarks.
Where it gets really fun is drilling the level below that:
- Of your organic search traffic, which keywords give the best results? Can you target those in a CPC campaign?
- Of referrals, which sites are more valuable, and how can you leverage that?
- Of CPC, how much could you save by taking the best keywords and putting them into your SEP campaign?
- And lastly, with direct traffic, are they going to the home page or somewhere else? What is it about your site that’s compelling people to visit without any prompting, and how can you guide these people to the next desired action?
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