For business owners trying to operate and improve the success of their website, Google Analytics is a great tool. It gives you concrete marketing data that actually allows you to evaluate your site’s performance. You can learn how many people are visiting your site, when are the high traffic times and where these people are from. Other valuable information includes, how long do they spend on your site, and what are they doing during their visit?
Of course, in order to fully understand this information there is some analytical jargon that you must understand first. The following is a brief explanation of the term “bounce rate” and how that information can be valuable to you.
Definition
To understand what a bounce rate is, you first have to learn what a “bounce” is. A bounce is a single page session on your site, so if someone clicks on a link or types in your URL and opens up your homepage and then leaves without opening any further pages of your site, that is considered a bounce.
The bounce rate is the percentage of your site visits that are single page sessions. This is calculated by dividing the number of single page sessions in a given period by the number of total sessions. In other words, if you have a bounce rate of 50% that indicates to you that half of your visitors to your website are only viewing your homepage and then leaving.
High Bounce Rate
Before analyzing your rate, whether it is high or low, you need to consider the nature of your specific website. If your homepage is just a landing page for visitors to find links to articles, news, or product information, then a low bounce rate is going to be very important to you. However, if your website’s homepage is a blog site with a lot of key information already provided on the first page, then a high bounce rate will not bother you as much.
Improving Bounce Rate
If you decide that it would be beneficial to your site to have a lower bounce rate, then you need to start considering the best way to engage your visitors. Knowing your target market is going to be key in accomplishing this. The secret to engagement is not making your website a maze of pages forcing visitors dive deeper and sending mountains of page requests to the web servers. This is actually counter-productive because people respond better to simple, clean sites with quick access to what they are looking for.
The secret is to know what it is that your visitors are looking for. Why are they coming to your site and what calls to action will they respond to? A call to action such as filling out a contact form, clicking on a promotion, or clicking to call your phone number are all examples of simple ways to engage people further in your site and turn leads into customers. As you monitor your bounce rate and respond accordingly, this statistic will help you provide a better experience for your customers and increase your success.
Written by Nicole Richards
