Website Bounce Rate Where Low Numbers Rule

In a previous post on social bookmarking sites the phrase website bounce rate came up often and some readers did not understand fully what it meant for their websites or blogs. I hope in this post to clear that up for many who are not quite sure. It’s not the easiest concept to understand running your blog or website.

What Is A Website Bounce Rate?

According to Google a website bounce rate is:

So if it is based on the number of people who navigate away from your website page see why a lower percentage bounce rate is what to strive for?  If people like what they land on when they arrive on your post or website they will stay a little or longer while driving your bounce rate down. They will check out your related posts and other pages. That is another reason why internal linking is important.

What Is A Good Bounce Rate To Strive For?

I personally like to see 50% or lower for a website’s bounce rate. 50% is considered an average bounce rate.

How To Find Your Website Bounce Rate

You need to have your Google Analytics set up for your website or blog.  If you don’t have yours set up yet, check out Mayura’s Post on how to today. From your dashboard follow the steps below:

1. Go to Acquisition.
2. Then go to All Traffic. I love this feature of Google Analytic – it gives you a lot of insights.
3. Check your top 50 and notice the bounce rate for each.

It is interesting to see which have the lower bounce rates – for me it’s Google organic and other blogs and websites. Returning visitors also lower my bounce rate and new visits seem to track higher. This means I have some work to do on those new visits. How is your website bounce rate measuring?

Also Check:

1. Audience Behavior.
2. New Vs. Returning. This is where I’ve noticed a much lower bounce rate for return visitors and a higher bounce rate for new visitors. Important information to know and to work with.
3. Technology – You can drill down more and see what drives bounce rate, tablet, desktop or mobile. More great info!
4. Keywords – You can even check your top keywords and their bounce rates as well.

13 Things You Can Do To Decrease Your Website Bounce Rate use a site for FREE called Browser Shots.

Check Your Site Speed - If your website is slow chances are that your website bounce rate may be high as well.

Nasty Pop-Ups – Many web users do not like to deal with pop-ups that they can not easily click away from and may leave your website because of them. You should be able to tell from the Google Analytics pages if this is the case.

Use A Clean Typeface – Is your typeface easy to read? Do readers have to squint? Be sure the font is readable and big enough.

Don’t Use Backgrounds That Give Headaches - Have you landed on a page with zig zag background or one with lots of things going on that it gives you a headache? Keep your backgrounds clean for easy of readability.

Provide Useful Content – Is the content useful to your readers? Or is there to fill space only? If it is not useful to your readers you may want to reconsider posting or changing the copy on that particular post or page.

Customize Your 404 Page – You could add links to other pages and posts of interests on your 404 page. This would give visitors who land there more options of where to go on your website and may keep them there longer. A fun image there would be helpful too. (Something I will be working on here soon.)

Were you surprised by your website bounce rate? 

Was there a stat in Google Analytics that surprised you about your bounce rates?

Image courtesy of renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net