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What is Bounce Rate?

How can you improve Bounce Rate

 

What is Bounce Rate?

Before we can fix our bounce rate, we have to fully understand what bounce rate is. Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who come to your website and leave without viewing any other pages on your website. Google Analytics use this to help rank your website (Google Analytics Definition of Bounce Rate). If your average bounce rate, for example, is 65%, this means that 65% of the people who come to your website leave after only viewing the page they entered on, whether it was your homepage or an internal page.

What this can indicate is that your website isn’t retaining its visitors. People are coming to your site and either finding what they want but not anything else or not finding what they want at all. The key is to make sure that once visitors land on a page, they are drawn to visiting even more pages throughout your site.

A common question is..

What is considered a Good Bounce Rate?

This is not a simple question to answer as it can be dependant on a number of factors such as:

  • Is your website a single page - if yes then the bounce rate is going to show high but this does not necessarily mean your website is bad. A client may have come to your single-page website and got all of the information they required. The client may have rang your business from this visit which may have resulted in a sale or the page may have an opt in form that the client has completed which does not show up in Google Analytics. So in summary a high bouce rate for a single page website may not be a bad signal.
    Other content tracking methods can be used to have a better idea if clients are interacting with your site - videos are such an example - if you  had a video on your single-page website Google Analytics can track if clients view this video. See more information on content tracking methods here.
  • The type of website you have - Is your website a Blog, Retail Site, single-page (landing page), Portal, Service site, Content website or Lead generation? There is a different average percentage for each industry.

As a rule of thumb, a bounce rate in the range of 26 to 40 percent is excellent. 41 to 55 percent is roughly average. 56 to 70 percent is higher than average, but may not be cause for alarm depending on the website. Anything over 70 percent is disappointing for everything outside of blogs, news, events, etc.
Reference: Gorocketfuel - Click here to read more

 

How can you improve Bounce Rate

Here are some great ideas!

  • Add links to more pages within your website in your content. Think about other pages that people interested in that piece of content will want to see, and link to them throughout the content and at the end in a “if you liked this, you’ll love this” kind of way.
  • Go beyond just product pages. Someone may not be ready to purchase a product, but they might just want to learn more about it. Instead of just having the sales copy, include some links such as a product manual, guides on how to use the product to achieve a specific result, what other customers have said about the product, or other similar ideas. Maybe it will keep the visitor on the site long enough to make the sale.
  • Add links to content everyone will love to your sidebar. If your design includes a sidebar that remains throughout your website, then include links on that sidebar that everyone would enjoy. For example, a new visitor could end up on any page within your website without knowing anything about you, so you could have an About Me / About My Company page linked to the sidebar. You could also have a “first time guide” to visiting your site, top content, most popular products, and so on, all of which would attract visitors deeper into your website.
  • Improve your content. If you notice the issue on some of your content isn’t just a high bounce rate but also a low average time on site (meaning people leave pretty quickly), then it might be an issue with your content not providing what the visitor wants. Be sure to review pages on your website with a high bounce rate and low average time on site and look at ways you could provide more information that would keep visitors on the page (like video) long enough to notice that there is more to your website without just immediately leaving.

Last, but not least, even if you can’t keep visitors on your website, you can do your best to ensure they will return by giving them links accessible throughout your website to your social media profiles, newsletter, or other online properties. If they leave your website but become a fan of your Facebook page or start following your Twitter account, you will still have a chance of bringing them back, if they leave and have no way to connect with you otherwise. It’s definitely something to consider if you don’t have these options already!

Reference: Kissmetrics Blog - Click here to read more