What is bounce rate?
The definition of bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a site who leave the site without viewing any more pages. Bounce rate is calculated using the bounce rate is: bounce rate = total number of visitors who view one page / total number of visits. A visitor can bounce by:
- Clicking the “Back” button to leave the site
- Clicking a link to a page on a different web site
- Closing the window or tab the page is being viewed in
- Typing and navigating to a new URL
- Session timeout: commonly 30 minutes
Bounce rate can vary between different data sources depending on the session timeout value. A session timeout out is where a visitors views a page, doesn’t navigate or bounce and leave the browser idle for longer than the timeout period. If after the session timeout period the visitor resumes activity and navigates on the site, it will be recorded as a new session. Bounce rate data in Google Analytics uses the period of 30 minutes.
Why is bounce rate important
The importance of bounce rate is very much dependant on the natures of the website and the “bounces.” The way bounce rate is interpreted is different for ecommerce websites, blogs, news websites, affiliate sites, social networking sites and so on. Below are some examples of the how the importance of bounce rate can vary between different websites.
Ecommerce and Bounce Rate
The goal of ecommerce websites is to convert visitors into sales. To complete a sale it is necessary to navigate through the purchase process. A high bounce rate on ecommerce websites indicates that there is an issue with traffic relevancy (visitors weren’t looking to buy the products and/or services offered) or the websites persuasion architecture (web page design, prices, content and calls to action). Bounce rate is important on ecommerce websites because it is one of the metrics that can be used to determine the performance of web pages.
Blogs, News Sites and Bounce Rate
Blogs and new websites etc provide articles about all manner of subjects. If you’re looking for information about a sports event, brewing beer, world politics, whatever is may be a good article on a news website or blog site should provide you with the information you were looking for. In which case you will bounce but the website will have achieved its primary goal. Many blogs are monetized using affiliate banners and Google Adsense, clicking on adverts is also counted as a bounce. Visitors clicking on adverts would also be one of the goals of a blog site or news website. Another reason why high bounce rate isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Affiliate and Adsense Sites and Bounce Rate
Some websites use search engine optimisation or paid search marketing to drive traffic to pages with an extensive amount of advertising. The intended goal of these websites is to get as many visitors to click on adverts as possible. Because clicking on adverts is counted as a bounce a high bounce rate may be a good thing. The web statistics analyst would compare bounce rate with clicks to determine what percentage of the bounce rate is from activities other than clicking on adverts. So bounce rate is also important on these websites but with clicks taken into account.
Bounce Rate: A Summary
With the knowledge of what bounce rate is and an understanding of the implications of bounce rate data for your website it’s possible to use it alongside other metrics to monitor, test and improve performance based and your websites goals. Using bounce rate it’s possible to streamline SEO, improve return on investment on PPC advertising and more!
