Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who navigate away from a particular website after viewing only one page. They get to your page and bounce right out, obviously not finding anything worth staying to read.

Google Analytics defines bounce rate as the percentage of single-page visits (or: visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page).

What Does Bounce Rate Measure?

Bounce rate is an exit metric used to measure how often a visitor exits away from your page after seeing it. In essence, it measures how engaging your content is.

If your website is engaging and answers a need that a reader is looking to solve, then it will have low bounce rates. Other metrics will support this fact, such as: longer time on page (they’re reading your content, after all), repeat visits (they’ve bookmarked your page and return to it), and click-through rates on any of the links you have on the page (they want more of your stuff).

But if bounce rate is high, then readers are not getting anything useful from your content, which could mean:

1. Poor quality: You need to improve the quality of content you offer.
2. Not what they expected: Or it could be that they clicked on a link that promised them something, and when they got to your site, they didn’t get what they thought they would. This could mean a disconnect between what they clicked and the content you have.
3. Difficult website: A third possibility would be that your webpage was too difficult to use and decided against staying and trying to figure it out.

What Actions Define the Bounce Rate?

A visitor to your website can bounce from it in one of several ways.

• A visitor clicked on a link leading to a different website and left your site.
• A visitor clicked the back button and ended up leaving your website.
• They closed an open window or tab that was on your website.
• They typed in a new URL.
• Their session timed out.

Read More About Bounce Rate