What is a bounce rate?
A bounce rate is defined as the number of visits that land on one page of your website and then leave without seeing any other pages. Most web analytics tools provide this metric in the reports, but sometimes a simple calculation tells you the bounce rate. It’s basically the number of entry page visits divided by the number of single page visits. This gives you a percentage of visits that leave instantly.
Why is it a great User Experience metric?
In a nutshell, a bounce rate is an indication of how successful a page is performing. If visitors land on your website and then leave immediately, this shows that the user goals are not being met on that page. It’s a great user experience metric because it helps you ask the right questions such as; where and what type of visitors are bouncing on your website? Ideally, your main landing pages (e.g. Homepage, Campaign page) should have a low bounce rate. If not, it should be investigated what the cause is and how it can be improved.
What is a good bounce rate?
Well, it really depends on the nature of the page. Firstly, don’t expect all the traffic to be interested in your content offering and subsequently staying on your site. According to Google, 20% of your traffic is likely to bounce, anything over 35% should be looked into and anything over 50% is worrying. These percentages are indicators for important landing pages. A very well written support article, for example, could have a high bounce rate (with a good corresponding time on page) because users find the information they need.
I’m interested, now what?
Just try it! Have a look at your most “important” web pages and their bounce rates. Are they what you expected? Does it raise more questions? Do some of these web pages need optimizing?
Want to know more?
We can also help you with understanding the bounce rates of your web site. Please contact us for more information!