What is a bounce rate?
Bounce rate can be defined simply as the percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page.
A bounce might be triggered by any number of events:
- Returning to search results
- Closing the browser
- Entering a new URL in the address bar
- Following an outbound link
- Staying inactive and timing out the session
- Reading an entire page, but not triggering any events and then leaving
What does a high bounce rate mean?
Bounce rates are widely used and popular, and eminently interesting to a web analyst. Knowing your bounce rate allows you to make informed decisions regarding content marketing, paid acquisition, SEO, and conversion rate optimization or user experience. You can use it as a metric to track whether or not your changes are positive or negative. They’re wonderful for finding opportunity areas.
However, keep in mind that they are also highly contextual. A high bounce rate isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Ultimately, context is key, and bounce rate is only a micro-conversion in your overall user experience funnel.
Quick wins for reducing bounce rates
- Optimize for speed and mobile experience
- Evaluate for distractions
- Optimize for conversions
Learn how to use website optimization tools to measure website performance and identify key website performance metrics to monitor and optimize.