A bounce is an action. There is a good action and a bad action. There is a good bounce and a bad bounce. The goal of the website is to get prospective students to apply and enroll in our institution. Typically blogs, new sites, event pages, thank you pages, etc. should have a high bounce rate because they are a single-page site. Meaning, they do not have a goal for visitor to venture further.

Good Bounce - Actions that are taken towards a purchase, or application, or in the direction of the goal of the website.

Bad Bounce - Actions taken by users caused my lack of interest, confusion, or a bad experience, where they move farther from the intended goal.

Cleaning Data

With data on thousands of pages, I first organized sections of pages with a 100% bounce and pages with an excellent rate, 26-40%.

Anything under 20 page views isn’t reliable because the values are so low. Any page with 20 views or below was eliminated then I was able to select 10 pages to study their comparison.

This graph shows the relationship of the date increasing while the bounce rate is decreasing. You can see in the graph that I included the y-forumla to showcase the rate of which the variables are changing together by the slope and y-intercept.

In comparing the math pages, these programs both offer lots of content and areas to explore further.

Good: 

• Good use of white space, which help promote balance, user focus increases by 20% just because the ability to have headings and text stand out. The white space is fresh, modern, and open.

• Next Action is frequently to the admissions page which leads to 18% to the application page.

• Showcasing faculty allows users to learn and get to know their potential educators. Visitors advance in that direction, when available.

Bad:

• Admissions link leads to an error page.

• Negative white space - user is shown blank, empty space where useful information could be portrayed.

• Long - especially on mobile preview

Good:

• People are interested in the faculty! Especially in theology because religion is a close, personal connection.

Bad:

• Mobile version - Due to a phone’s limited real estate, the first sight the user expereincesis a picture of a window.

• Mobile version - Very long

• No featured faculty

• 34% Exit Rate

Good:

• Clean white space, again visually appealing and results in a trustworthy connection with webpage and therefore organization.

• User is spending 2 and a half minutes on this page - shows interests before moving on. They must be reading word-for-word instead of skimming content.

• Admission to 18% Application page

• 2.32 second load time

Bad:

• As it seems users are interested in learning about the faculty, these pages offer no opportunity to do that.

• No related programs showcased.

Good:

• Load time is 1.39 seconds but because there is unfortunately no content.

Bad:

• Not presenting anything to user and asking too much of them.

• No faculty, again.

Good:

• Best page performance: BA - English with Journalism Emphasis

  • Leads to admissions most of the time

  • Fast load time (1.74 sec)

  • Includes faculty and related programs

  • Happy hero image - girl laughing

Bad:

• Imperfections are unprofessional and interpreted as untrustworthy by the user and there interpret our institution as untrustworthy.

• Communication Studies Minor has a long load time (3.68 sec)

Resources & References

• csp.edu (in reference with google analytics)

• CSP enrollment data

• https://www.searchenginejournal.com/what-is-bounce-rate-how-to-audit/240555/#close

• https://www.digishuffle.com/blogs/10-ways-to-analyze-high-bounce-rate-advanced-guide/

• https://www.gorocketfuel.com/the-rocket-blog/whats-the-average-bounce-rate-in-google-analytics/ 

• https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/web-design-11-characteristics-user-friendly-website 

• https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/improve-your-websites-user-experience 

• https://www.bluecorona.com/blog/how-fast-should-website-be 

• https://kickofflabs.com/blog/bounce-rate-14-ways-you-are-driving-people-away-from-your-landing-pages/ 

• https://www.oho.com/blog/2019-google-analytics-benchmarks-higher-education-websites 

• https://www.broadbandsearch.net/blog/mobile-desktop-internet-usage-statistics 

• https://www.dotnetcatch.com/2017/07/14/zeros-in-google-analytics-site-speed-metrics/ 

• http://www.thearda.com/Denoms/D_887_t.asp 

• https://iop.harvard.edu/survey/details/demographic-and-political-profile 

• https://ezgif.com/effects/ezgif-6-a7142680d0de.gif (tool used)

• https://screenshot.guru (tool used)

• Larsen, Richard J., and Morris L. Marx. An Introduction to Mathematical Statistics and Its Applications. 5th ed. Boston: Prentice Hall, 2012.

• https://www.mathsisfun.com/data/standard-deviation.html

• https://cxl.com/guides/bounce-rate/