Would you like to learn about the quality of traffic coming to your website? Bounce rate is a key web metric that can provide insight into how relevant the audience being attracted to your site really is.
What does “bounce rate” mean?
(Photo by sean dreilinger)
A website’s bounce rate is an indicator measured in one of two ways:
1) The percentage of visitors who leave your website after visiting just one page.
2) The percentage of visitors who leave your website after visiting it for just a few seconds.
If you use Google Analytics (a free tool), the bounce rate is calculated using option #1, which is not ideal, as option #2 typically provides more meaningful data, particularly in cases in which visiting a single page can accomplish both business and customer goals.
Regardless of which formula is used for the calculation, if your business spends money and/or time on web marketing efforts, watching a trend of bounce rate is an effective way to learn which particularly initiatives are producing tangible results and which aren’t, helping you decide how to apply resources for the greatest return.
How do I know whether my bounce rate is good or bad?
Web analytics specialist Avinash Kaushik says that from his personal experience “it is hard to get a bounce rate under 20%. Anything over 35% is a cause for concern and anything above 50% is worrying.”
Clearly, a high bounce rate is a bad thing whenever it means that a landing page is not having the desired effect of engaging your visitors and encouraging them to explore what your site has to offer. If, however, having visitors come to your site simply to get some information and leave doesn’t affect your bottom line, even a bounce rate of 80% or more (especially if calculated using the definition #1 above) shouldn’t be a reason for concern. This could be the case if prospective clients come to your site just to check your hours of operation or telephone number, or readers routinely visit to check a few news items and leave.
So, do I need to watch the trend of bounce rate for my site?
In order to answer this question, you need to consider the purpose of your site as a whole, and the goals of specific webpages.
- Is your website selling products? If so, the bounce rate at the site level, and particularly of landing pages with product details (if your statistics are available at the page level) will help you determine whether there’s something driving visitors away, rather than convincing them to place an order.
- Does your site earns money based on page views? Again, if the answer is yes, you have a vested interest in monitoring your bounce rate and putting an effort into encouraging users to explore other pages on your site, or read older posts on your blog.
- If, on the other hand, your site’s purpose is to serve as a quick reference for people looking for a number to call or another information readily accessible, or to provide links recommending other websites, you probably don’t need to watch the bounce rate, and can focus on other data that will be more meaningful in your case, such as number of visitors and top referring URLs.
100% of the proceeds from this book go to two charities (The Smile Train and Ekal Vidyalaya). The following link will allow you to buy the book with affiliate procedings also going to Avinash’s supported charities:
