Bounce rates over different kinds of content and different pages can be drastically different, even on the same blog because different kinds of content attract different kinds of people, and catch people in different kinds of mindsets. Here are a few different kinds of blog posts and the effects they can have on bounce rates.
Entertainment Posts
These are posts that are mostly shocking, entertaining or funny. They may have something controversial in the content, be designed to incite outrage, or could just be something that is out of the ordinary and gets a laugh.
This kind of content tends to get a very high bounce rate. People come to your website, see the funny thing and then leave. This kind of content tends to do very well on social bookmarking sites, but the quality of the traffic is quite low.
The one exception to this rule is if you can get people to go into clicking mode. Just the way YouTube can seem to pull you in when you start watching one video, this effect can also work very well for entertaining content. Put suggested thumbnails of other entertaining content you have on your website near your content. This will increase the likelihood that people will start clicking on other content on your site.
Educational Content
Educational content can have either a high bounce rate or low bounce rate, depending on the topic and how your content is structured. If the topic is a very broad topic, such as how to make money online or how to build a fitter body, then great content will yield a very low bounce rate as people will want to learn more.
On the other hand, if you have great content and the scope of the question is very narrow, people might leave after visiting your page and finding the answer. For example, if they find your page by typing in “How to Fix a Leaking Faucet” and find the answer, they might find exactly what they need and bounce.
Product Pages
Product pages tend to have very high bounce rates because if someone lands on your product page and doesn’t buy, that counts as a bounce. Make sure you track your pay-per-click (PPC) traffic separately from SEO traffic. PPC traffic, especially when sent to a sales page, will have a much higher bounce rate.
The Effect of Blog Frequency on Bounce Rate
Blog frequency can have an enormous big effect on your bounce rate. If you blog frequently and start to build a following, your bounce rate will drastically drop because you will start to have a loyal following, who will visit your front page for updates, then read any new content. Since by definition they will be visiting at least two pages, the bounce rate will be low.
On the other hand, low frequency blogs generally won’t build strong communities and audiences and will get the majority of their traffic from search engines instead; naturally, the bounce rate will be much higher.
As you can tell, different kinds of pages and post frequencies can have drastically different bounce rates. The bounce rate alone isn’t enough to measure how well you are doing; you need to also ask why the bounce rate is what it is.
