Definition

A website bounce rate is the number of visitors that go off page after viewing only one page. The bounce rate is expressed as a percentage.

Description

When browsing for information the website visitor may not always spend too much time on a page. That could be because they did not like the first hand information useful or the website appeared to be too complex for the child.

It could lead to visitors leaving the website sooner than the publisher expected. This indicates the bounce rate of a website which is a single-page session divided by all sessions.

Bounce rate defines a percentage of people who visit a website and then leave immediately. A bounce rate looks like this:

Over a period of time, the bounce rate keeps changing which is important for the marketer to analyse. Aiming for a 0% bounce rate will be carrying too much hopes for brands. The average bounce rate expected must fall between 26% to 40%. When the rate is above 90% it should be a matter of concern.

And, as the number of mobile users is on the rise, the bounce rate for mobiles is 51% which is highest across all industries.

Some of the major causes that contribute to increased bounce rate like bad design, errors in code, browser incompatibility, etc.

Example

There were 100 visitors on a fashion apparel website www.fapparel.com. Out of these 100 visitors, 10 visited only one page and left the website immediately. It indicates that the bounce rate of the website is 10%.

Importance of bounce rate

Businesses might fail if they are not monitored carefully. One vital metric to measure is bounce rate which is important as:

• Bounce rate measures the quality of the visit.
• It helps to identify the issue with the user-experience, content relevance, page layout, or copywriting.
• It enables the website owner to understand that there is a need for enhancement of various elements.

How to compute bounce rate?

Bounce rate is computed as-

Bounce Rate= Single Page Session/Total Sessions

For example 500 people visited your website and out of those 200 people left the website without moving on to the second page, your website’s bounce rate will be

Bounce rate= 200/500 X 100=40%

Common reasons to have a high bounce rate

Common reasons for the website to have a high bounce rate include:

• Slow-to-load page: If the site speed is too low, that is, it takes time to load, then the probability of bounce rate being high increases.
• Effective content: At times the content is too good that quickly gives the users the information they want. So they browse and leave the website immediately.
• Incorrect title tag and meta description of the page: If the title-tag and meta-description is incorrect, it will mislead the users. This can add to the high bounce rate.
• Blank Page: A high bounce rate is also an indication of 404 which means that the page is blank.
• Bad Links: The bad links from referring sites could be a possible reason to have some visitors that quickly leave the website.
• Affiliate landing page: The bounce rate of the affiliate landing page can be high because the purpose of the page is to drive traffic to the merchant’s site. Same will be the case with the single page website like a portfolio or an eBook.

FAQs

How to reduce the bounce rate?

To reduce the bounce rate, you can follow these practices:

• Have a mobile-friendly website because half the traffic is coming from the mobiles.
• Monitor the bounce rate which is based on different websites.
• Eliminate reasons that can affect the user’s experience.
• Find out the keywords that help the pages rank.
• Optimise SEEP.
• Boost user-engagement on the landing pages.
• Check performance by devices like laptops and mobiles.

What is the difference between the bounce rate and the exit rate?

The two rates might be confusing but bounce rate measures the percentage of single engagement. On the other hand, exit rate measures the exits on the page.

Exit rate considers individual pages to show how many people exit the page comparing the total number of views that page received.

It implies that exit rates are recorded regardless of the user’s activity some time in the past. But the bounce rate is recorded if the user exits directly from the page they entered.

Should I be concerned if the website has a bounce rate of 80%?

Yes, the website bounce rate that falls between 70%-80% is a matter of concern. The website owner must find the reason for the issue and try to eliminate them.

Is there a bounce rate grading system?

Yes, in common these are the standards that are followed for the bounce rate grading system:

Percentage	Bounce Rate Status
25% or lower	There is something which is probably broken.
26%-40%	Excellent
41%-55%	Average
56%-70%	Higher than the normal and the issues need to be considered.
70% or higher	Bad and something is to be fixed urgently.

Also Read – What is Soft Bounce?