Sure, the bounce rate may include returning users, but you seem to be missing this really important point:
When I first saw the site, I had no idea what it was about. I left. Without clicking anything.
When I saw the site the second time, I read the about us page, still didn’t know what it was about, and left. Without clicking anything.
A web professional who has worked with marketers (me) is telling you “the web marketing sucks”.
We really don’t know what percentage of the bouncers are new users from this page. But if we want growth, we can’t just tell ourselves that most of the people who are leaving are returning users and brush this off. Consider this:
Sure, the bounce rate may include returning users, but you seem to be missing this really important point:
When I first saw the site, I had no idea what it was about. I left. Without clicking anything.
When I saw the site the second time, I read the about us page, still didn’t know what it was about, and left. Without clicking anything.
A web professional who has worked with marketers (me) is telling you “the web marketing sucks”.
We really don’t know what percentage of the bouncers are new users from this page. But if we want growth, we can’t just tell ourselves that most of the people who are leaving are returning users and brush this off. Consider this:
http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s18lesswrong&r=36
If the new users were all registering, the growth should be how much faster than that?
(I’m hereby updating the OP with this. Thanks for pointing it out.)