Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is an engagement metric and is the single page visits divided by entry pages. Simply put, bounce rate is when a user visits your site and exits without going any further through your website. They do not click on a menu item, a ‘read more’ link or any other internal links on the page (Berg, 2019). Commonly confused with exit rate, a bounce rate is where a visitor visits one page of your website and does not do anything else. An exit rate is the percentage of people who left your website from that page (number of exits from a page divided by a total number of page views of that page).
Is a high bounce rate a bad thing? According to Google (n.d.), it depends. If the success of your site depends on users viewing more than one page, then, yes, a high bounce rate is bad. For example, if your home page is the gateway to the rest of your site and a high percentage of users are viewing only your home page, then you don’t want a high bounce rate. On the other hand, if you have a single-page site like a blog, or offer other types of content for which single-page sessions are expected, then a high bounce rate is perfectly normal.
According to Berg (2019), having a high bounce rate can mean three things:
1. The quality of the page is low. There’s nothing inviting to engage with.
2. Your audience doesn’t match the purpose of the page, as they won’t engage with your page.
3. Visitors have found the information that they were looking for.
1. The quality of the page is low. There’s nothing inviting to engage with.
2. Your audience doesn’t match the purpose of the page, as they won’t engage with your page.
3. Visitors have found the information that they were looking for.
This infographic goes into detail about how to decrease your bounce rate (How to Decrease Your Bounce Rate, n.d.).
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Essentially, it says to set realistic expectations, attract the right visitors, enhance usability, use a good layout, speed up pageload, and provide good content. Realistic expectations (aka average bounce rates) depends on the industry and nature of a website:
- - Content Websites: 40-60%
- - Lead Generation: 30-50%
- - Blogs: 70-98%
- - Retail Sites: 20-40%
- - Service Sites: 10-30%
- - Landing Pages: 70-90%
- Source: Kusinitz (n.d.)
Attracting the right visitors is important, because a large amount of visitors who do absolutely nothing on your website is not useful at all. A smaller, more engaged amount of visitors is more important because they are more likely to perform the action(s) you would like them to. This goes in hand with providing good content. If you provide good content, the right visitors should follow. Enhancing usability, having a good layout, and fast speeds all have to do with your website performance and layout. If you do not create and maintain your own website, it is important to portray to your website manager that these things are critical to the success of your website.
If you need to decrease your bounce rate, consider implementing the following elements:
- More white space to help increase engagement
- Larger headlines to draw your visitors in
- Bulleted lists to make your text more readable
- High contrasting colors to increase usability
- Faster load times to prevent people from leaving in frustration
Source: How to Decrease Your Bounce Rate (n.d.)
Sources:
Berg, A. van den. (2019, April 18). Understanding bounce rate in Google Analytics • Yoast. Retrieved from https://yoast.com/understanding-bounce-rate-google-analytics/.
Google, bounce rate - Analytics Help. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1009409?hl=en.
How to Decrease Your Bounce Rate. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.quicksprout.com/how-to-decrease-your-bounce-rate/.
Kusinitz, S. (n.d.). How to Decrease Your Website's Bounce Rate [Infographic]. Retrieved from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/decrease-website-bounce-rate-infographic.
Very interesting infographic!
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