There are two types of visitors on a blog, an impressed one which has returned to the website and an unimpressed one which has arrived for for the first time.
Note. If you think you've missed the previous part, check out the 'When will my blog die?' study from the start.
Several parameters define the quality of visitors on a website, percentage new sessions and percentage returning sessions are some of them. Percentage New Session and Percentage returning sessions are basically two interdependent parameters which depict the percentage of new users entering the website and the percentage of returning users entering the website respectively.
The Results
For example, if the percentage of New session is 80%, then the percentage of returning sessions would amount to 20%. This means 80% of the users on your website would be new users who have not visited the website before. 20% would be the ones that have visited your website before and have come for more.
There is one fundamental difference between sessions and users. A session is the time, a user spends on the website before closing the window or leaving it.
Correlation Between Average Session time and Percentage Returning Sessions.
It is interesting to correlate the average session time and percentage returning sessions. As seen in the graph given below, it becomes very clear that the average session time varied quite proportionally to the percentage returning sessions. This is logical as the returning number of visitors are expected to spend more time on the website. Which is because, new visitors often spend lesser time if they do not agree with the overall layout, design (Font Size, Font Type and Font color) or the writing style of the author. Returning visitors do agree with them and hence are expected to stay.
Correlation of Bounce Rate and Percentage New Sessions
One thing that can be correlated effectively with Percentage of new sessions is bounce rate. It was interesting to find out the correlation between bounce rates and percentage new sessions.
It is however very interesting to note that the Bounce Rate actually follows the percentage new Sessions values until day 35. After 5th Week, it looks as if the relation between Bounce rates and Percentage new Sessions is inverted. Higher the Percentage of new Sessions lower is the bounce rate, which also means lower the percentage of returning visitors lower is the bounce rates. Since the study was stopped after day 44, It is not clear, how long will the trend continue.
Correlation between Effective Bounce Rate and the difference of Bounce Rate and percentage new Session
Since any definite trend cannot be found out from the particular graph, It was decided to go further with the graph between Bounce Rate (B) and The percentage new sessions (PN). Instead a graph was plotted between Bounce Rate (B) and the difference between Bounce Rate and Percentage of new sessions (B-PN). The following is the graph between (B) and (B-PN).
Though generalizations cannot be accurately made from the data, It is found that more positive difference between Bounce Rate (B) and the Percentage of New Sessions (PN) would mean Lesser Bounce Rate.
The Complete Study
The Complete 5 Part Study can be accessed from here as it is published,
[Published on 8th Dec 2014]
[Published on 15th Dec 2014]
[Published on 22th Dec 2014]
[Published on 29th Dec 2014]
[Published on 5th Jan 2015]
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