Meaning of Bounce Rate and Why It Matters

 Meaning of Bounce Rate and Why It Matters

A “bounce” occurs when a user visits your website and leaves without interacting further with your site. Your bounce rate shows you the percentage of your visitors who bounce off of your site.

By default, Google Analytics considers a visitor to have interacted with your site if they visited at least one additional page.

Bounce rate is the average number of bounces across all of your pages divided by the total number of visits across all of those pages within the same period.

You can track the bounce rate of a single page or a segment or section of your site using Google Analytics 

The bounce rate of a single page is exactly what it sounds like. It’s the total number of bounces divided by the total number of visits on a page. 

FACTORS THAT AFFECT BOUNCE RATE

1 Pop-up ads, surveys, music,or

streaming video

2. Search engine ranking of page (pages that rank higher on irrelevant keywords have higher bounce rates

3. Type of audience

4. Landing page design

5. Ads and landing page messages

6. Emails and newsletters

7. Load time of pages (longer load time=higher bounce rate

8. Links to external sites

9. Purpose of the page

TIPS TO IMPROVE BOUNCE RATE

1. Maintain top rankings for branded terms

2. Provide relevant content

3. Build a clear navigation path/menu

4. Link to a glossary page that defines

industry terms

5. Place search function prominently

6. Speed up pageload using Google Page

Speed plugin

7. Get rid of pop-up ads

8. Reduce external links (or have them

open in a new window)

ALSO READ: See Reasons Why You Should Start Using TouchPal Keyboard On Your Phone

Why Does Bounce Rate Matters? 

According to SEMrush, bounce rate is the fourth most important ranking factor on SERPs.

However, according to Google's Gary Illyes, Google does not use bounce rate in its algorithm metrics.

Google’s algorithm may not directly take bounce rate into account, but what it signifies is very important to it.

As of 2016, RankBrain was the third-most important ranking factor of Google’s algorithm.

If you’re not familiar with RankBrain, its main purpose is to improve users’ search results by better understanding their search intent.

If a user clicks on your page and leaves without any interaction, that could signal to RankBrain that your site isn’t what they’re looking for.

It makes it look like your result doesn’t match the searcher intent well. As a result, RankBrain says, “Maybe this page shouldn’t be so high in the results.”

If you understand bounce rate properly, it can tell you if your marketing strategy is effective and if your visitors are engaging with your content.

The key is to understand what your “target” is and break down your bounce rate in a way that provides meaning.

In conclusion, To help people engage with your content, be sure to improve your site’s readability, add imagery, optimize your CTAs, and use live chat. 

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