Definition of Bounce Rate

Written by Nick Stamoulis

Bounce rate is an internet marketing term that refers to the percentage of visitors to a website who enter and then leave (“bounce”). A “bounce” is when a visitor only views one page and then leaves without viewing any other pages on the website. There is no minimum or maximum time a visitor has to leave for the “bounce” to occur. The session may time out, causing the bounce, or the bounce may occur when the visitor clicks the back button, enters a new URL, or closes the tab. Bounce rate is determined by software that tracks visitors on the website.

What can you learn from bounce rates? Bounce rates can help you determine how well the page the visitors entering are at gaining their interest. An entry page with a high bounce rate can be a bad thing if the success of your website relies on the viewers viewing more than that page alone. You don’t want a high bounce rate if your visitors are viewing the home page and not exploring the pages where you sell your products or services. If your website is more informative, like a blog, news, or other articles, a high bounce rate is not a bad thing as they are coming to view what they were looking for specifically before leaving.

If you want to lower your bounce rate, start by exploring the pages where the bounces occur. For example, if the home page or a page selling your product seems to have a high bounce rate, it would be worth exploring why that is. The page might need better marketing, especially if ads that are sending people there are not relevant to the content on the page.

Other common reasons for a high bounce rate include:

  • too many irrelevant images
  • rambling content
  • slow loading page
  • low-quality content
  • not mobile-friendly

What can you do to lower your bounce rate? The first step to lowering your bounce rate is understanding the bounce rate numbers. If a page has a bounce rate of higher than 80%, this is considered a pretty serious problem. You might think that 70% would also be a bad number, but actually a bounce rate of 50% – 70% is the average for websites. You can do better though! Aim for 30% – 50%. Lowering bounce rate can be done with some of the following ideas:

  • Design a better user experience. If the page isn’t easy to navigate, seems confusing, or doesn’t look appealing, this could be why visitors are bouncing instead of exploring further.
  • Do A/B testing. A/B testing is when you create two different versions of the same page to compare against each other. The results can help you figure out where your original page is lacking.
  • Improve content marketing. Better SEO as well as consistent link building are two ways you can improve content marketing.

By reducing bounce rate, you can increase your website’s conversions.

 

Bounce Rate Definition Sources:

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