Bounce Rate: Everything You Want to Know
A bounce rate can be used to evaluate the interactions of users with your site and pages. There are many misunderstandings about the bounce rate.
Let me clarify. I’ll be talking about the bounce rate and its limitations. This metric can be used to give you a real picture of your website.
What’s the Bounce Rate?
According to Google Analytics, the bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors that visit your site and then leave in a matter of seconds.
Estimation of the bounce rate using the number of visits to the page multiplied by the number of entries.
The percentage is displayed in Google Analytics. If your homepage’s bounce rate is 45 percent it indicates that visitors abandon the page without interfacing or clicking on other pages.
You can determine the bounce rate in many ways
Start by checking out the Behavior section in Google Analytics.
To view bounce rates page by page, click “All Pages” in the “Site Content” tab. You can use this information to give context for bounce rates (more info in a moment>
Google Analytics allows you to view bounce rates under the “Acquisition” section. Next, click on “All Traffic”, then click on “Channels,” then “Source/Medium” or “Referrals”. Each view will show bounce rates for various traffic types.
While there are many reasons why people consider bounce rates important, not all can be accurately calculated.
To determine if a website, landing page, or ecommerce site is keeping customers happy, the primary purpose of looking at bounce rates is.
This is an excellent way to check if others are taking the action you desire.
The bounce rate myths
Many misconceptions surround bounce rates. All of them stem from the reality that bounce rate does not exist as a whole without context.
This is just a number.
Without considering other metrics, and the goals you have for each page of your site, bounce rates won’t give you any insight into consumer behavior.
First mistake: High bounces are bad
High bounce rates can often be misinterpreted by people. But that does not mean that they have left your website.
Well, yes.
This doesn’t necessarily mean your page failed to reach its goals. Let us say the page was a blog post you want people to share.
A person who has read the article and then shares it via social media. This was quite good.
This post is meant to be shared.
#1 Misconception – Low bounce rates can be good
A negative side of the equation “high bad bounce rates = poor” is that it is believed that a low bounce rate is always a good thing.
This is not true.
Let’s say someone lands on your product page and is not converted, but they go to a lot of irrelevant pages that distract from the purchase.
Low bounce rates indicate that your product pages have failed.
The Third Misconception: It is essential to have a target bounce rate
Thorough research on bounce rates will reveal that you should keep it below a specific percentage.
The bounce rate is a percentage of your overall goals.
A blog with a bounce rate of 85% on individual posts doesn’t mean we need to have a bounce rate of 85%.
It is impossible to compare the bounce rates between other sites or competitors. A target bounce rate is not possible.
Misconception #4: Bounce rate doesn’t matter
After seeing all the ways bounce rate can be misinterpreted, it’s easy for people to overlook this metric.
Wrong!
Contrary to common belief, bounce rates should still be something that you pay attention to regularly.
You can’t see if they take the actions you desire.
Use the Bounce Rate
Let’s dispel all myths. Let’s now discuss how to properly use the bounce rate in site performance evaluations.
Bounce Rate + [metric]
To give context, you can use the bounce rate.
To see how visitors interact with your posts, look at their bounce rate and average time spent on the site.
A high bounce rate and a low average page time will indicate that your topic is popular.
You can compare bounce rates to see how different traffic sources perform.
You might want to reconsider your ads if your paid traffic bounces off an ecommerce website more often than your organic traffic. They might not be communicating what visitors need to expect. This could lead them to abandon the site they visited through a paid advertisement.
Bounce Rate + Goal
Contextualizing bounce rates can be done by using page goals. For example, let’s take this REI ecommerce site.
This page serves navigational purposes so the bounce rate is low. Click on product pages to interact and not “bounce”.
But, you’d expect a higher bounce rate if it was compared to a page on a blog (like this). This is because the page’s purpose is not navigational.
This page is for you. You can find the answers to all your questions about bounce rates and share them with your friends. A high bounce rate is acceptable.
Modifications to the Bounce Rate
It’s a great way to see if bounce rates have changed after you make changes to your website design.
Your ecommerce pages suddenly have a higher bounce rate
The new design has caused people to leave the navigational category page for product categories. People want to go to the product pages but they don’t want to leave.
You can measure bounce rates by adding pop-ups on your web pages. Pop-ups are not always relevant advertisements.
It is important to monitor bounce rates after adding new features or functionality. This will ensure visitors can find the information they need and can interact with your pages.
Next steps
You now can properly evaluate the bounce rate. First, you must know your goals.
The next step is to establish your thresholds. You should also look out for patterns and unusual behavior after you make changes to pages or websites.
You can also use analytics to address specific issues.
