Since Google Analytics is far and away the most popular web analytics tool, it pays to know exactly how Google Analytics’ bounce rate is calculated and a guide to using this info in your favor. See new what it is and how it works.
I came, I puked, I left” is a very famous definition of the bounce rate by Avinash Kaushik. But what does it mean exactly? When does a visitor bounce? Is it purely a visitor that hits the back button, or is there more to it? And what can you tell by looking at the bounce rate of a webpage? In this post, I want to show you what it is, what it means, and how you can improve your bounce rate.
What’s Google Analytics Bounce?
Google Analytics bounce rate is a metric that measures the percentage of people who land on your website and do completely nothing on the page they entered. So they don’t click on a menu item, a ‘read more link, or any other internal links on the page. This means that the Google Analytics server doesn’t receive a trigger from the visitor. A user bounces when there has been no engagement with the landing page, and the visit ends with a single-page visit. You can use bounce rate as a metric that indicates the quality of a webpage and/or the “quality” of your audience. By the quality of your audience, I mean whether the audience fits the purpose of your site.
How does Google Analytics bounce rate calculate?
According to Google bounce rate is calculated in the following way:
Google Analytics Bounce is single-page sessions divided by all sessions, or the percentage of all sessions on your site in which users viewed only a single page and triggered only a single request to the Analytics server.
In other words, it collects all sessions where a visitor only visited one page and divided it into all sessions.
Having a high bounce rate can mean three things:
1. The quality of the page is low. Nothing is inviting to engage with.
2. Your audience doesn’t match the page’s purpose, as they won’t engage with your page.
3. Visitors have found the information that they were looking for.
I’ll get back to the meaning of bounce rate further below.
Bounce rate and SEO
In this post, I’m talking about bounce rate in Google Analytics. There’s been a lot of discussion about whether bounce rate is an SEO ranking factor. I can hardly imagine that Google takes Google Analytics data as a ranking factor because if Google Analytics isn’t implemented correctly, then the data isn’t reliable. Moreover, you can easily manipulate the bounce rate.
Luckily, several Googlers say the same thing: Google doesn’t use Google Analytics data in their search algorithm. But, of course, you need to ensure that when people come from a search engine to your site, they don’t bounce back to the search results since that kind of bouncing probably is a ranking factor. It might be measured differently than the bounce rate in Google Analytics.
From a holistic SEO perspective, you need to optimize every aspect of your site. So, looking closely at your bounce rate can help you optimize your website further, contributing to your SEO.
How to interpret Google Analytics bounce rates?
The height of your bounce rate and whether that’s good or bad depends on the page’s purpose. If the meaning of the page is pure to inform, then a high bounce rate isn’t a bad thing per se. Of course, you’d like people to read more articles on your website, subscribe to your newsletter, etc. But when they’ve only visited a page to, for instance, read a post or find an address, then it isn’t surprising that they close the tab after they’re done reading. Mind you, even in this case, there’s no trigger sent to the Google Analytics server, so it’s a bounce.
When you own a blog, the clever thing is to create a segment that only contains ‘New visitors. If the bounce rate amongst new visitors is high, think about how you could improve their engagement with your site. Because you do want new visitors to engage with your site.
You might need to optimize the page itself
If the purpose of a page is to engage with your site actively, then a high bounce rate is terrible. Let’s say you have a page with one goal: get visitors to subscribe to your newsletter. If that page has a high bounce rate, then you might need to optimize the page itself. You could lower that bounce rate by adding a clear call-to-action, a ‘Subscribe to our newsletter button.
But there can be other causes for a high bounce rate on a newsletter subscription page. If you’ve lured visitors under pretenses, you shouldn’t be surprised when these visitors don’t engage with your carrier. They probably expected something else when landing on your subscription page. On the other hand, if you’ve been very clear from the start about what visitors could expect on the subscription page, a low bounce rate could say something about the quality of the visitors – they could be very motivated to get the newsletter – and not necessarily about the quality of the page.
Bounce rate and conversion
If you look at bounce rate from a conversion perspective, then bounce rate can be used as a metric to measure success. For instance, let’s say you’ve changed the design of your page, hoping that it will convert better, then make sure to keep an eye on the bounce rate of that page. If you see an increase in bounces, the change in a design you’ve made might have been the wrong change and could explain your low conversion rate.
You could also check the bounce rate of your most popular pages. Which pages have a low and which pages have a high bounce rate? Compare the two, then learn from the pages with low bounce rates.
Another way of looking at your bounce rate is from a traffic source’s perspective. Which traffic sources lead to a high or a low bounce rate? Your newsletter, for instance? Or a referral website that sends a lot of traffic? Can you figure out what causes this bounce rate? And if you’re running an AdWords campaign, you should also keep an eye on the bounce rate of that traffic source.
Be careful with concluding, though…
We’ve seen loads of clients with an unnaturally low bounce rate. In that case, all alarm bells should go off, especially if you don’t expect low bounce rates. Because that probably means that Google Analytics isn’t implemented correctly. Several things influence bounce rate because they send a trigger to the Google Analytics server and Google Analytics falsely recognizes it as an engagement. Usually, an unnaturally low bounce rate is caused by an event that triggers the Google Analytics server. Think of pop-ups, auto-play of videos, or an event you’ve implemented that fires after 1 second.
Of course, having a low bounce rate is good if you’ve created an event that tracks scrolling counts. It shows that people scroll down the page and read your content.
How to lower high Google Analytics bounce rates?
The only way of lowering your bounce rate is by amping up the engagement on your page, let us guide you. I think there are two ways of looking at the bounce rate. From a traffic perspective and a page perspective.
If specific traffic sources have high bounce rates, then you need to look at the expectations of the visitors coming to your site from those sources. Let’s say you’re running an ad on another website, and most people coming to your site via that ad bounce, then you’re not making their wish come true. You’re not living up to their expectations. Review the ad you’re running and see if it matches the page you’re showing. If not, ensure the page is a logical follow-up to the ad or vice versa.
If your page lives up to your visitors’ expectations and still has a high bounce rate, then you have to look at the page itself. How’s the usability of the page? Is there a call-to-action above the fold on the page? Do you have internal links that point to related pages or posts? Do you have a menu that’s easy to use? Does the page invite people to look further on your site? These are all things you need to consider when optimizing your page.
What about the exit rate?
The bounce rate is frequently mistaken for the exit rate. The exit rate is the percentage of page views that were the last in the session. It says something about users deciding to end their session on your website on that page. Google’s support page gives some clear examples of exit and bounce rates, which clearly make the difference. This comes directly from their page:
Monday: Page B > Page A > Page C > Exit
Tuesday: Page B > Exit
Wednesday: Page A > Page C > Page B > Exit
Thursday: Page C > Exit
Friday: Page B > Page C > Page A > Exit
The % Exit and Bounce Rate calculations are:
Exit Rate:
Firstly, Page A: 33% (3 sessions included Page A, 1 session exited from Page A)
Secondly, Page B: 50% (4 sessions included Page B, 2 sessions exited from Page B)
Finally, Page C: 50% (4 sessions included Page C, 2 sessions exited from Page C)
Bounce Rate:
Firstly, Page A: 0% (one session began with Page A, but that was not a single-page session, so it has no Bounce Rate)
Secondly, Page B: 33% (Bounce Rate is less than Exit Rate because 3 sessions started with Page B, with one leading to a bounce)
Finally, Page C: 100% (one session started with Page C, and it led to a bounce)
The bounce rate may indicate that your message is reliable
Bounce rate doesn’t affect your ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs) like Google and Bing, which is why some marketers don’t pay much attention to it. Bounce rate also doesn’t tell you how long someone stays on your page (dwell time).
Bounce rate simply tells you that someone has come, seen, and left without viewing any pages on your site other than the page they landed on. But it doesn’t tell you whether those visitors are happy or frustrated.
You can have a great page that looks great and instantly leads people to a place where visitors (click to see specific content) are happy with their visit and leave completely happy.
Google adds this behavior to your bounce count.
In this case, a high bounce rate does a great job, amigo, because you’re helping people with questions find answers without them having to search – you don’t have to spend time optimizing your pages.
What affects bounce rate?
They know that a high bounce rate isn’t always alarming, and a low bounce rate can be terrible. To find out, you need to look at the sites related to your traffic:
- Why do visitors come to your website? (user intent)
- What kind of website is it?
- How is the quality of the website?
- Traffic quality
- Types of Marketing Channels
- Visitor Type
- Equipment type
Conclusion
In conclusion, in this guide, we learn that Google sees bounce rate as a metric you can use to analyze your marketing efforts. You can use it to measure if you’re living up to your visitors’ expectations. As we have seen, visitors bouncing from your website don’t necessarily puke before they leave, despite what Avinash Kaushik says. Nevertheless, you want them to engage with your site. So you can use the bounce rate to decide which pages need more attention. Meeting your visitors’ expectations and making your pages more inviting for visitors all lead to creating an excellent website. And we all know that awesome websites rank better!
