Bounce Rate
Quick Summary
- We define bounce rate and explain why it’s important for SEO.
- A website’s content or design may not be interesting or relevant to visitors if bounce rates are high.
- You can find ways to improve by studying the bounce rate of your pages. Your bounce rate may be impacted by problems like poor load times, navigational difficulties, or irrelevant material.
What Is Bounce Rate?
The percentage of site visitors that leave after only reading one page is known as the “bounce rate.” It shows how frequently users browse your website without engaging or doing more research.
While certain bounces cannot be prevented, a high bounce rate may point to inadequate or ineffectively optimized content.
Let’s learn more more about improving bounce rates.
What Is a Good Bounce Rate?
A bounce rate of 60% or more may be a sign that you need to review your page content and make it more user-friendly and engaging. A desirable bounce rate is approximately 40% or below.
Although you want your bounce rate to be as low as possible, it might vary based on the sector, the type of website, and even the time of year.
According to Custom Media Labs, the following are some typical bounce rates for different kinds of websites and webpages:
Accordingly, a high bounce rate in e-commerce is typically above 45%, but above 90% on blogs.
The source of your visitors’ traffic might have a significant impact on your bounce rate.
According to CXL, the following average bounce rates are broken down by traffic source:
In conclusion, you shouldn’t ask, “What constitutes a good bounce rate?”
You should consider this:
- How does the bounce rate of my website compare to the industry average?
- What is the average bounce rate for my website?
- How do the bounce rates for my campaigns compare to one another?
- What changes have my bounce rates over time shown?
Is Bounce Rate a Ranking Factor?
A confirmed Google ranking element is not bounce rate.
It is merely a metric. Additionally, one that Google has frequently said has no direct impact on rankings.
(However, some studies have shown a link between ranking and bounce rate.)
However, you should make every effort to lower your bounce rate.
Why?
A high bounce rate is frequently a sign of issues with other SEO elements, such as:
- Slow loading speed
- Low-quality webpage design
- Mismatch between content and keywords
- Poor mobile optimization
Most of the time when someone “fixes” your bounce rate, they are dealing with one of these problems.
Additionally, a lower bounce rate typically means that your material is interesting or helpful.
And Google is undoubtedly interested in it.
Bounce Rate vs. Exit Rate
Exit rate is the proportion of users who, after seeing any number of pages on a website, depart a certain page.
Say, for illustration, that a visitor arrives at an item on your blog.
After that, users choose an internal link and arrive at another article. They read the second article before closing their browser.
Not a bounce, that.
However, because the visitor left your website after reading the second article, the exit rate for that page will go up.
The percentage of visitors who land on a page and immediately leave it is known as the bounce rate.
Assume a visitor arrives at one of your blog’s articles. Then, a few seconds later, they close their browser.
Certainly a bounce. The bounce rate for that page will rise.
In order every bounce is an exit. Exits aren’t all bounces, though.
Bounce Rate in Google Analytics: UA vs. GA4
Currently, Universal Analytics and GA4 are the two data collection technologies used by Google Analytics.
They each calculate bounce rate in a different way.
Bounce rate is what Universal Analytics describes as:
“The percentage of single-page sessions during which there was no interaction with the page.”
So the session qualifies as a bounce if a visitor arrives on your page, peruses your material for a while, and then clicks away.
The bounce rate measure appears as such in a UA dashboard:
According to GA4, bounce rate is:
“The proportion of non-engaged sessions during sessions.”
A visit that lasts 10 seconds or longer, includes one or more conversion events, or includes two or more page views is referred to as an engaged session.
Therefore, the session does not count as a bounce if a visitor arrives on your website, peruses your content for more than 10 seconds, and then clicks away.
even if they didn’t do anything else.
Here is how a GA4 dashboard displays bounce rate:
Google will stop using Universal Analytics on July 1, 2024, so keep this distinction in mind.
The fundamental truth remains the same:
User engagement can be evaluated using the bounce rate.
You want people to visit your page and take action once there. even merely look around.
If they don’t, it can mean that your page’s content, design, copywriting, or user experience are flawed.
How To Find Your Bounce Rates
The bounce rate of a page is calculated by dividing the number of single-page visits by the total number of site visits.
Page bounce rate = single-page visit / total visit
The bounce rate of your website is 10%, for instance, if 100 users visit your site (total visits) and 10 of them only view one page before leaving (single-page visit).
10% = 10 / 100
Universal Analytics
Navigate to any report with a data table (Acquisition, Behavior, or Conversion tabs) in Universal Analytics to find out your bounce rate. The bounce rate measure is present in all of them.
When you select “Behavior,” “Site Content,” and “All Pages,” for instance, the report shows a “Bounce Rate” column.
Click on an entry in the table to view the bounce rates for that page.
For example, /home.
You can find out additional details about that page by clicking the entry.
a graph showing the average time-series bounce rate for the page.
Alternately, you may use the advanced search function to whittle down the search results by including or excluding items as well as adding dimensions and metrics.
Click the “advanced” button located above the table to get started.
By selecting it, a drop-down form will display, allowing you to further limit the data set.
Pro tip: You can omit pages from your statistics if you are aware of one or more that have higher bounce rates and don’t want them to affect your overall percentages.
As an illustration, let’s imagine you want to see how well your e-commerce web pages are doing.
Your website receives a lot of visitors. However, you’re more concerned in how visitors are interacting with the rest of your website.
In Google Analytics, use the “advanced search form” to remove /home from your report.
Like this:
Following your click on “Apply,” you should observe that your advanced search filter is activated and that the /home page is no longer listed in the table.
GA4
The GA4 bounce rate checker is a little difficult to use.
First, select the “Reports” tab (located on the left).
Then, click on “Engagement” and then “Pages and screens.”
Next, edit the report using the pencil icon located in the top right corner of your screen.
Like so:
A sidebar should appear to the right of the icon.
In that sidebar, select “Metrics.”
The “Pages and screens” report’s default metrics are displayed in this sidebar.
Click “Add metric” at the very bottom.
And select “Bounce rate.”
To reposition the “Bounce rate” such that it is one of the first columns, click and drag the six dots next to it.
Like this:
Then, click “Apply.”
The report now includes bounce rate. Therefore, select “Save” followed by “Save changes to current report.”
And then “Save.”
You can now go back and make sure you successfully included the bounce rate to the standard report.
How To Lower Your Bounce Rates
The following six strategies can help you increase user interaction, engagement, and, ultimately, bounce rates.
Improve Page Load Speed
The user experience can be made or broken by page speed. The likelihood of someone bouncing increases with page load time.
Quite a bit.
This correlation is supported by a Google page-speed analysis of 11 million pages.
Here is an analysis of how load times affect the likelihood that a user may leave:
Download a plugin like PageSpeed Ninja to enable compression on your websites.
To keep your image sizes short, you may also download an image compressor like TinyPNG.
Optimize Your Mobile User Experience
Worldwide, more than half of all web traffic comes from mobile devices.
indicating that:
Your website must function flawlessly on mobile devices in order to have a low bounce rate.
This includes having responsive pictures, large fonts, and easy-to-read navigation.
Here’s how to accomplish that.
Check out your website’s performance on mobile devices first.
Use Google’s Mobile Friendly Test to quickly and easily verify.
To test a page, enter its URL and select “Test URL.”
The tool will notify you in a few seconds if the website is mobile-friendly.
To view a screenshot of the URL and further details, click on “View Tested Page“.
Visit the “Details” section to find out why the URL isn’t accessible on mobile devices.
Google Chrome can also be used to examine how your page truly appears on a mobile device.
It is a short and simple test that is helpful while creating a website. Or to instantly view how your website appears on a mobile device.
To accomplish this, simply right-click anywhere on the page you wish to check. Next, click “Inspect.”
The inspect window will show up on your website to the right or bottom.
In that box, select the mobile device icon.
You can alter the size of your screen to see how your page appears on other devices.
Use the “Responsive” drop-down menu in the window’s upper left corner to accomplish this.
Click the “X” in the upper right corner to go back to your regular screen.
Purposefully Use Internal Links
Consider including internal links to other website content if you want to keep users from leaving your pages.
in particular on blog entries.
You provide readers the option to go through and read other content by connecting to relevant topics and articles.
and hence won’t bounce.
Including a section labeled “related posts” at the conclusion of your articles is another excellent approach to achieve this.
Like this:
In this manner, you provide readers with something to do following your piece. rather than bouncing.
Internal links are important for SEO success as well because they:
- Make sure Google can discover and comprehend every page on your website.
- Help Google identify the most crucial pages on your website
Make Your Content Easy to Read
Visitors to websites are eager to learn something new. They are searching for the relevant information.
which implies:
They will bounce if they can’t quickly find what they’re looking for.
Here are some suggestions for making your text simple to read:
Use subheadings. Your content is divided into easily readable sections by headers. Additionally, make your information very simple for people to skim and comprehend.
Use blank space. Use a lot of white space around your text to give it room to breathe.
Use short sentences and paragraphs. Paragraphs should be divided into one- to two-sentence sections. Aim to use one idea every sentence as well.
Satisfy Search Intent
When entering a query into a search engine, a user’s primary intention is to perform a search.
And a search engine’s major objective is to give users the most pertinent results for their search.
which means:
Searchers should find what they’re looking for on your pages. In any other case, they will return to the search results.
Analyzing SERPs (search engine results pages) is a wonderful technique to understand search intent.
Why?
Google already knows what users want to see when they search for a particular keyword. Use that, then.
Here’s how to perform a quick analysis of the SERPs.
Say you want to create a piece about content creation.
Go to Google and type in “content writing.”
The majority of results are novice guides, as can be seen in the SERP. Basic inquiries like “What is Content Writing?” are common.
They put a lot of emphasis on educating users about content writing, including what it is, how to do it, recommendations, examples, etc.
However, a keyword like “content writing services” returns a variety of businesses that provide content development services.
Therefore, it’s unlikely that a post you wrote to inform people about “content writing services” will score highly for the keyword “content writing.”
Why?
Simply put, it wouldn’t fulfill the search objective.
Enter your keyword first, then click “Search.”
Use a Table of Contents
A table of contents assures the reader that their search goal will be satisfied.
This enables people to skip to the part of the text that is most relevant to them.
Visitors will be less likely to bounce if you make each of those processes as simple as feasible for them.
Suppose you arrive at this page:
It’s a great manual.
However, it’s really challenging to identify a single advice, plan, or procedure.
While in this guide, you can locate what you’re looking for right away.
Bonus tip: Make the contents page appealing. comparable to what a trailer for a film is. Consider it a pitch to get readers to keep reading the article.
