In terms of the statistics available in Google Analytics, Bounce Rate is a key stat to understand because it gives information about how engaged your web visitors are with your website.
Bounce Rate is the percentage of people who leave your website without clicking on anything
For Bounce Rate, the lower the better
For example if your Bounce Rate is 15%, only 15 out of 100 people leave without clicking on anything, the other 85 click something and therefore visit more than one page of your site. However if your Bounce Rate is 85%, then 85 people out of 100 leave without clicking on anything and you have an opportunity to make changes with the aim of lowering the Bounce Rate.
Get to know your website’s Bounce Rate
Your website’s Bounce Rate can be seen on the Audience Overview Report in Google Analytics, at the bottom of the second column of stats.
I regularly get asked what is good, or bad, in terms of Bounce Rate.
The answer is that it varies for each and every website.
Some of the things that impact your website’s Bounce Rate are:
- How well targeted your marketing is; if it’s not well targeted, your Bounce Rate will be higher.
- How well written your web copy is; does it draw your readers in and encourage them to get engaged with your website?
- How clear, prominent and compelling your Call to Actions are; do they make your readers want to “click” to respond?
- How well designed and easy to navigate your website it.
Bounce Rate is often higher for blogs
If you have a blog on your website, it’s likely that your Bounce Rate is higher than for example, a purely ecommerce site. That’s because a lot of your regular readers will visit your site, read your new article and then leave. For this reason it’s good to review your Bounce Rate in conjunction with Average Visit Duration. If your Bounce Rate is high, but your Average Visit Duration is OK, then you know that people are sticking around to read your content.
Got a question about Bounce Rate?
Feel free to leave a comment below.
Until next time
Melinda
Image courtesy of renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Melinda aka Mel is a Google Partner, Google Ads & Consultant, Speaker and Trainer and co-owner of Click-Winning Content.
Mel provides results-driven services to organisations around the world and is committed to never using an acronym without explaining it first. She also likes greyhounds as pets, grand slam tennis, cracked pepper and Melbourne sunsets.
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Nice explanation about bounce rates. Liked your view about a blog vis-à-vis an e-commerce site.
Also, when you have an audience base that comes mostly from Social networking sites, then also bounce rates tends to be on the higher side…
Hi Vibhu
Thanks for your comment and that’s a great point re visitors from Social Media, they can often bounce more because they are likely to visit your website regularly to read new content.
Regards
Mel
lol I better get my Gravatar fixed, I’m not sure why it’s not showing up!