Bounce rate is undoubtedly an extremely critical metric in Google Analytics as it provides you with powerful information about the behavior of your website visitors.
Recent studies prove that about 40% to 50% of your site visitors will bounce off it takes the website over 3 seconds to load. For medium to large scale companies, particularly those that depend on digital marketing to widen their customer base, bounce rate is indeed an essential performance indicator particularly in their Google Analytics website analysis.
Did you also know that top brands such as Walnmart and Amazon keep a constant check on their site’s bounce rates? They do so to make certain their website fulls customer expectations.
But what is bounce rate in Google Analytics really? And why do you need to pay attention to it?
Understanding Bounce Rates
Bounce rate, be it in Google Analytics or otherwise is the percentage of all the website users who land on it, but leave it after viewing a certain page, and don’t interact with the rest of your website. Simply put, it refers to the ratio of a single webpage session to the total sessions.
What Do High and Low Bounce Rates Indicate?
When your bounce rate is high, it means visitors do land on your website, but quickly leave it which results in poor site engagement.
Inversely, when the bounce rate is low, it suggests that your site’s visitors explore more of its pages, and interact with it.
What is a Good Bounce Rate?
Typically, a bounce rate lying between about 20% and 40% is deemed as excellent as it symbolizes high relevance and engagement levels.
Bounce rate of around 41% to 55% is considered average. It suggests that generally visitors do engage with your website, but nonetheless your site needs improvement.
A bounce rate that exceeds 70% is quite poor as it shows that users don’t find your site engaging, meaningful and valuable. Plus, it also means you need to effectively optimize your site.
An important point to note is that what is deemed as a good bounce rate depends a lot on your website’s nature. News websites or blogs generally have high bounce rates as users tend to read an article, and bid goodbye to the site.
It’s important to keep in mind that what qualifies as a good bounce rate will depend on the nature of your site. For example, blogs or news sites might have higher bounce rates since users may read a single article and leave, while e-commerce sites may want lower bounce rates to drive sales and conversions.
Formula of Bounce Rate
The formula of bounce rate is given below:
Bounce Rate= Single-page sessions/ Total sessions x 100
Basically, you divide the single-page sessions over the total number of sessions, and then multiply its output with 100 to get the site’s bounce rate.
Importance of Understanding the Bounce Rate in Google Analytics
Bounce rate indicates how effective your website is in terms of visitor engagement.
The bounce rate along with the click through rate in Google Analytics are often the two most regularly checked metrics.
Both these metrics gauge user engagement from diverse, but equally important angles. Click-through rate (CTR) measures the total percentage of users who click on an ad or link as compared to the total number of people who have seen that link. High CTR means the ad or link’s content is compelling and valuable enough to encourage users to click it.
On the other hand, bounce rates evaluate the percentage of users landing on the site, but exiting it without further exploration. High bounce rates indicate visitors didn’t really find what they hoped for when they clicked on your ad or link.
If your CTR is pacing well, but bounce rate keeps experiencing dips, it means your website is struggling to keep the visitors hooked to it for long.
Understanding bounce rate and what it indicates helps you identify and handle numerous problems.
Bad User Experience
If your business website loads slowly, isn’t visually attractive, or has difficult user-navigation, it is likely that the users will instantly leave it.
Poor visitor experience on the website means you need to start paying more attention to your website’s interface, and the experience it provides to your visitors.
Irrelevant and Meaningless Content
Your website’s visitors look for relevant and value-driven content that fulfills their needs.
If your site’s users are unable to find content that aligns with their expectations and requirements, they are likely to bounce back.
A high bounce rate in Google Analytics suggests that your site’s visitors aren’t too happy with your website’s content. Perhaps, it is bland, irrelevant, and does not cater to their pain points. So now is a good time to give it an overhaul.
Technical Problems
When your website’s bounce rate constantly rises, it indicates that it has ongoing technical issues.
Generally, technical problems encompass non-responsive website design on mobile devices, malfunctioning page elements and broken links.
Focus on fixing all these errors so your website functions smoothly, and starts to better engage your visitors.
Poor Quality of Traffic
Sometimes, high bounce rates stem from untargeted and/ or irrelevant traffic landing on your website.
Perhaps, your organization’s marketing campaigns aren’t effective enough in bringing high-quality traffic to your website. Poor quality traffic is when the users aren’t really interested in your offerings, seek something else, and do not actually fall in your target audience.
When that happens, your bounce rates start to escalate. Spend time on figuring out your actual target market, and define the audience for your campaigns to get more quality traffic on your website.
Final Thoughts: Keep Track of Your Bounce Rate in Google Analytics
Bounce rate is one of the fundamental metrics in Google Analytics that helps you improve your content, SEO and marketing strategies.
Ensure to regularly monitor your website’s bounce rate in Google Analytics, so you can then effectively modify your website, and make it more worthwhile for your users. Consequently, the friction between your site and traffic decreases which increases your conversions.
If you need assistance in improving your website’s bounce rate, the digital marketing experts at ITechSole are here to help you. Allow us to run a FREE website audit for you to figure out its performance. Moving on, we can devise a result-driven SEO plan to better rank your website.
FAQs
- What is considered a good bounce rate in Google Analytics?
Generally, a 40% bounce rate in Google Analytics is considered quite good. If the bounce rate is even lower than 40%, it is deemed as excellent.
- Is 80% bounce rate too high in Google Analytics?
Yes, 80% bounce rate is considered to be very high and bad in Google Analytics. It means that your visitors aren’t able to engage well with that particular page of your website, and quickly leave it.
- How can I check my website’s bounce rate?
To check your website’s bounce rate in Google Analytics, click on reports then engagement. Next, click on pages and screens. Now, search for the ‘bounce rate’ option that usually shows as the percentage of all the non-engaged sessions. You have the option of filtering the data by traffic sources, time periods or specific pages to get deeper insights.
