Google Analytics gives us a wealth of useful, insightful, but often confusing data about our website traffic and one such metric displayed on our dashboards is Bounce Rate. So, what is bounce rate, how is it calculated and what does it mean for your business?
Let’s start with what a “bounce” is and what it’s not. Google Analytics works by monitoring requests to the Analytics server which happen when someone views a page on your website containing the Analytics tracking code. If someone lands on your home page but doesn’t view a second page, an initial request is made to the server from the home page, but then no further requests are made as the tracking code isn’t fired again. This would be considered a bounce. A bounce, therefore, is simply a single page visit to your website, so the user lands on a page and then leaves without viewing another page. A bounce does not take into account how long a person stayed on that page (sometimes referred to as “dwell time”), so they could have been on the site for a millisecond or 27 minutes and it would still count as a bounce in Google Analytics.
Your bounce rate is displayed as the percentage of sessions that result in only one page being requested. So if your bounce rate is 50%, this means that 50% of the sessions on your website were single-page sessions.
If you have a high bounce rate, if can mean that your site isn’t appealing or relevant to visitors which is making people leave without viewing a second page. There may be usability issues or mobile issues which prevent users from interacting with your site or being able to see key content because of the device they’re using. In some circumstances a high bounce rate is the result of the tracking code not being properly installed on the website and there being certain pages of a site without the code. For example, if you just installed the tracking code on your home page, but not any other page, your website visitors would all appear to bounce when they viewed a second page as the second page isn’t sending a request to the Analytics server.
A high bounce rate is definitely something to be aware of, however, it’s not always a bad thing. For example, if you have a single page website or landing page that gives visitors a lot of information on one page, they’re unlikely to need to view a second page, so your bounce rate will always be high, but it doesn’t mean it’s not effective. In this case you’d want to make sure your website is achieving your goals, whether that’s phone calls or enquiries, to gain a better insight into how well it’s performing.
Sites that have a blog often have a high bounce rate too as people visit to get answers to a specific question. Once they’ve read that article, they naturally leave. Again, this isn’t always a bad thing, but if you have a blog and are keen to reduce your bounce rate, look for ways to keep people engaged such as providing links to other articles and resources related to what they’ve already read.
If, on the other hand, your website lends itself to people viewing more than one page, such as an e-commerce website or travel comparison site, your bounce rate should be relatively low so if your Google Analytics report is showing a high bounce rate (or a bounce rate that’s increasing over time), this would be a cue to start reviewing your website for any issues that might prevent people from engaging with your content.
A low bounce rate is generally a good sign; it shows people are engaging with your site and viewing more than one page. In some rare cases, a low bounce rate can show as a false positive. This happens when a site or landing page gives very little information and requires users to click through to a second, third or fourth page to find the information they need. Whilst in most cases, using your home page to signpost people to a relevant section on your website is a good idea, in some cases (depending on the navigation and structure of your website) this can be un-intuitive, confusing and additional work for the user, causing frustration and eventually abandonment. So, always look at your bounce rate alongside other metrics such as conversion rate!
To conclude…
Your bounce rate is the percentage of sessions that only involve a visit to one page of your website and whilst bounce rate is an important metric for some websites, the way Google calculates bounce rate means for many websites, it has less relevance and should be viewed as a benchmark to monitor changes over time.
Leave a Reply