Bounce Rate: Is the content relevant to the audience you are attracting?

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According to the Web Analytics Association, “bounce rate” is the single page view visits divided by entry pages. Essentially, a “bounce” occurs when someone visits your website, views a single page, and leaves with no engagement with other pages on the website.

Marketers can find their bounce rate on their web analytics platforms, such as Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics. If one looks into their Google Analytics, for example, and sees the average bounce rate for a page is 50%, then that means that 50% of the people coming to their website leave after viewing only the page they entered on (Capstick, 2018).

Bounce rate is important, but it is not everything.

The initial implication of high bounce rates is unfavorable. Avinash Kaushik, a digital marketing professional, states that a high bounce rate shows that “the content on your site didn’t match what the visitor was looking for so they left without viewing another page. Pages with a high bounce rate are not delivering on the promise that is driving customers to the website” (Waisberg and Kaushik, 2009). 

While high bounce rates on a website or website pages can indicate that the intent is not met, but a high bounce rate can also be a positive indicator.  Businesses can get value out of a single page visit if the intent of a single page is to keep users on it and convert on the one page. A bounce rate, in this case, is perfectly normal. These pages with high bounce rates are typically blogs, paid media landing pages (where single-page sessions are expected), or other similar types of content.

Typically, bounce rates are used to measure the quality of a web page and/or the quality of the audience you are attracting. According to Annelieke van den Berg (2018), having a high bounce rate can mean three things:

  1. The quality of the page is low. There’s nothing inviting to engage with.
  2. Your audience doesn’t match the purpose of the page, as they won’t engage with your page.
  3. Visitors have found the information that they were looking for.


Some web analytics platforms report on keywords and their bounce rates- which is sometimes more useful because the keywords searched implies the intent of the visitors who have clicked on it. If a specific keyword is consistently high in bounce rates, that shows that the page did not match the intent of the user, lowering engagement and bouncing.


Modifying Bounce Rates

If a bounce rate on a single page meant for engagement is high, the only way of lowering the bounce rate is to increase the engagement on the page visitors are landing on.

Keeping an eye out on conversion rates can help marketers determine which of the aforementioned things are connected to the high bounce rate. Looking at the bounce rate from a traffic perspective and a page perspective is also very strategic for modifying bounce rates (Van den Berg, 2018). For example, if a specific paid media traffic source has high bounce rates, it is best to review the advertisements and see if it matches the page they are landing on.

If you find that the ad and the landing page does, in fact, live up to the intent of the user, then it is time to look at the user experience. Conversion optimization plays a big role in this scenario since we are relying on the page to be successful. Optimizing the page to include a call-to-action above the fold, internal links, page loading times, and more, can not only increase your engagement but decrease bounce rates, as well.


Resources. 

Blue Corona. (n.d.). What is Bounce Rate and is it important? Retrieved from https://www.bluecorona.com/faq/what-is-bounce-rate-and-is-it-important/

Web Analytics Association. (2007). Web Analytics Definitions. Retrieved from http://94.126.173.33/ad2006/adminsc1/app/marketingtecnologico/uploads/Manuais/waa-standards-analytics-definitions-volume-i-20070816.pdf

Capstick, N. (2018, February). Understanding Bounce Rate and Why it is So Important. Retrieved from https://www.digitaldoughnut.com/articles/2018/january/understanding-bounce-rate-and-why-its-important

Van den Berg, A. (2018, October 12). Understanding bounce rate in Google Analytics • Yoast. Retrieved from https://yoast.com/understanding-bounce-rate-google-analytics/

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 19, 2019 at 4:27 PM

    Hey Emma,
    Just looking over some of the blog's from the class. Thanks for making your Blog a real link! With that said, I appreciated your post on bounce rates. Although I felt pretty conversant on what a bounce rate is, I had not condsidered bounce rate with respect to a web site may have the primary call to action (conversion action) on the landing page. No doubt that muddys the water a bit (as you pointed out). For example; is it the first page call to action (conversion) to early in the visitor visit, and thus increasing the bounce rate? Could it be the content doesn't feed the call to action appropriately? Since the call to action is on the first page, perhaps you are correct that all of the supporting information a visitor might need is also on the landing page and a certain percentage are bouncing after gethering the info.
    I also wonder how the revisit rate would be affected by a first page call to action. If bounce rate is high, would the revisit rate be high as well?
    So many questions you have me thinking of here!
    Thanks,
    David

    ReplyDelete
  2. MelanieMarch 27, 2019 at 6:20 PM

    Hi there.
    This is a great blog post and a nice looking blog. I found the same content about bounce rate's potential to be misleading. It definitely illustrates the fact that all websites have unique goals and their users have unique needs and behaviors. Still, for most websites a high bounce rate is a quick and dirty way to get an early tip off that something is not working as well as expected. Those pages are likely to need editing because they are not offering users the information needed to convert.
    Thanks for your post and best of luck with interpreting your site's analytics.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nina AthenaFebruary 27, 2020 at 5:06 PM

    Thank you for sharing this! What you have shared is very helpful and informative. Would love to see more updates from you.

    Social Media Services

    ReplyDelete

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