When looking at web traffic, one of the metrics we often hear about is the “bounce rate”. Most of us have a negative feeling about this term, as it implies that something didn’t quite ‘work’, like a bounced payment or a bounced email. However, is it really a bad thing?
What is a bounce rate?
In short, bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors that enter your landing page or website but leave without viewing other pages. Essentially, they only view the page they landed on without staying or exploring further. A “bounce” is also called a single-page session on your site.
So, is it a bad thing?
Actually, it depends on your objective and goal of what you want visitors to do on your website. Unlike a bounced email or cheque where nothing has gotten through, in this case, the visitor does enter and is on your page. If you have a single-page site like a blog or a landing page that asks users to sign-up or fill in a form to click send, then these pages will naturally have a high bounce rate. If, however, you are aiming for users to explore your website to browse for products and make purchases, then a high bounce rate is not ideal.
Do I need to reduce the bounce rate on my website?
Again, this depends on what you want to achieve. A high bounce rate is normal for a page where the objective is getting a visitor to complete something on that page, and require no further interaction, for example, signing up for a newsletter. As long as the page is bringing in leads successfully, there is no need to be concerned about the bounce rate.
It is important to monitor pages that have a high bounce rate individually to see whether the content is suitable, and whether it achieves the goal of what you want the visitors to do. If it is an extensive landing page with a high bounce rate, then it is likely the content is not answering the burning questions they have come to the website for, and may need adjusting. It may also be the layout of your page that is not encouraging visitors easy paths to explore, or is confusing to navigate.
How Concept Designs and Marketing can help
When it comes to bounce rates, you also need to examine from different perspectives and look at the different reports, such as the Audience Overview, Channels, All Traffic, and All Pages reporting. These can help you determine the overall bounce rate, channel grouping, source/medium pair and how individual pages are performing.
If you need a hand, get in touch with us, and we can examine your analytics to pinpoint what you need to improve on your website. We can also help you install heat mapping to monitor user behaviour which goes hand-in-hand with conversion rate optimisation for your website.
