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Ask HN: What bounce rate should my e-commerce site expect from organic search?

2 points by 1va ↗ HN
I have a straightforward niche e-commerce site selling multiple products.

As the number of visitors I get from search engines has increased, so has my bounce rate. I've worked for myself and others on various content-oriented sites, so I expected this, the more visitors I have the less qualified they are likely to be.

What I didn't expect is how high the bounce rate has climbed, it's currently in the 75 to 80% range, dipping down to 65% to 75% on a good day or good page.

I'm able to influence that slightly with various A/B tests and I'm pursuing that line of analysis, but this bounce rate is much higher than the bounce rate at the other sites I've worked with, both small and large. But I've never really operated a strict e-commerce site before.

What kind of bounce rate should I be expecting from organic search results? What's high? What's low?

5 comments

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spooneybarger
Well that really depends on your product and other factors...

are you running lots of advertising like banners that people might see and then later search on to find out more? i've seen that push bounce rates up to 90% in the past.

1va
Wait, maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but you've found that having people explicitly searching for you increases your bounce rate? Wouldn't those people be less likely to bounce? Your site is literally what they were looking for (even if they are disappointed when they arrive).

For what it's worth, while there are some visitors explicitly looking for my site, most are coming in from long tail search queries (and those are the ones that tend to bounce).

I'm just wondering if 75% bounce rate is something to worry about. My gut feeling is that this is too high. In most other sites I've worked with this was more in the 35 to 45% range, but those were entirely different businesses.

spooneybarger
yes, people explicitly searching can increase your bounce rate... you run a banner ad, it teases people about your product, they dont click. later, after seeing it a few times, they eventually search on your product, end up at your site, see what it is all about and move on.

an e-commerce company i did work for saw that happen on numerous occasions.

ddemchuk
There's no such thing as a high or low bounce rate, the only thing that matters is how many conversions you're getting. someone getting a 90% bounce rate but converting at 5% is doing better than someone with a 40% bounce rate with 2% conversions.

A low bounce rate does not necessarily mean more sales.

1va
This is an excellent point.

I agree that visitors-to-conversions are is the core underlying metric.

But these bounces are a subset, and large one, of the visitors that don't convert. It seems that area of greatest opportunity should be within the 80% of visitors that bounce. Assuming I've got the conversion engine relatively well oiled, I'd really like to draw in those 80% of visitors that virtually walk out the door.