Bounce Rate in Google Analytics is calculated as the visits with only a one-page view divided by total visits. GA server records those visitors which viewed a single page and triggered a single request. In other words, a website bounce rate in GA is actually the percentage of single interaction visits to a website meaning single-page visitors. A high bounce rate could mean either the page quality is low or the page does not have the audience engage. Users cannot find relevant content or the visitors could quickly find information about what they are looking such as a link or an address on the websites’ landing page. Analyze bounce rate metrics using your marketing skills by measuring website fulfillment in terms of visitor expectations leading to their interaction with your site. The page that needs more attention, can be made ‘more inviting’ to engage with your audience.
Websites can rank higher if you give your visitors what they want and it will go a long way in building great interactive websites.
Bounce Rate in Google Analytics: What is a bounce rate?
A bounce rate represents the percentage of visitors who land on your website and then exit (“bounce”). They do not continue to view other pages within your site. Click on the 7 steps to getting started with GA to read more. In Google Analytics, Bounce rate = Bounces / Sessions or Clicks.
In short, a bounce rate is a metric that
- calculates the landing page visit %ages and visitors that do not take any action on the page they entered. eg; click on links that land on other pages of the websites.
- show the quality of (1) a webpage (2) of your audience that realize the objective of their visit to your website
What is a Good Bounce Rate?
The basis of the page justifies whether the bounce rate is good or bad. The bounce rate within specific limits shown below determines how good or bad it is-
- 26-40 percent -> excellent.
- 41-55 percent -> roughly average.
- 56-70 percent -> above average.
- more than 70 percent -> disappointing
A high bounce rate may not be a bad idea if the website has only one page or contains only information that needs to be passed over to the audience. It is not good if the visitor is required to engage with the website but does not interact.
However, the bounce rate can be improved by adding a call to the action button to your website to inform visitors what they need to do next such as a buy or subscribe to newsletters, etc. The audience in general must find what they seek on your web page. If not the page will have to be improved to meet the expectations of the audience.
Bounce rate in Google Analytics can be viewed as a perspective in terms of (1) a conversion to measure success, (2) traffic that relates to high or low bounce rates, and (3) a page that depends on its usability. The bounce rate viewed in terms of a page or traffic perspective leads to conversions. From a conversion perspective, the bounce rate metric measures a favorable outcome. Improve the visibility of your website by having a high CTR, low bounce rate, and a high conversion rate.
Bounce Rate in Google Analytics: What is an exit rate?
The %age of page views last visited is called the exit rate and this is often mistaken for a bounce rate. It shows the visitor decided to end the visit to a specific page on the website. The exit rate is calculated as a percentage.
The formula is given as %Exit Rate = Exit / Pageviews. To find the Exit Rate fig3 in Google Analytics go to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages and view each pages’ exit number.
Calculation of Bounce Rates and Exit Rates.
From the Google example, metrics for a series of single session days on a website are given as under:
Monday: Page Y > Page X > Page Z -> Exit
Tuesday: Page Y > Exit
Wednesday: Page X > Page Z > Page Y -> Exit
Thursday: Page Z > Exit
Friday: Page Y > Page Z > Page X -> Exit
Bounce Rate:
Page Y -> 3 sessions start with Page Y ie Mon, Tue, and Fri. 1 session for Tue leads to a bounce. Hence 1/3*100=33%
Page X -> 1 session starts with Page X ie Wed. 0 session leads to a bounce. Hence 0/1*100=0%
Page Z -> 1 session starts with Page Z ie Thu. 1 session of Thu leads to a bounce. Hence 1/1*100=100%
Exit Rate:
Page Y -> 4 sessions for Page Y ie Mon, Tue, Wed, and Fri. 2 Exit for Page Y on Tue and Wed. Hence 2/4*100=50%
Page X -> 3 sessions for Page X ie Mon, Wed, and Fri. 1 Exit for Page X on Fri. Hence 1/3*100=33%
Page Z -> 4 sessions for Page Z ie Mon, Wed, Thu, and Fri. 2 Exit for Page Z ie Mon and Thu. Hence 2/4*100=50%
Both the bounce rate and exit rate measures the visitors’ behavior of a website. While the bounce rate is concerned with visitors’ first impression of a website. On the other hand, the exit rate measures the effectiveness of a page that leads visitors to take action on the website. The action may be to request a quote, download a white paper, sign up for a newsletter, buy a service or a product, etc.
View Bounce Rate in Google Analytics
Navigate to Audience > Overview. fig1 shows the bounce rate of your website. It helps you understand the percentage of website traffic that actually engages with your site.
From a page perspective navigate to ‘Behaviour > All Pages’. The graph displays the users tracked over a period of time for all pages on your site. Next, choose the bounce rate metric from the drop-down. The bounce rate as a metric is displayed in the graph fig2 along with users as a trend.
Drill down further to ‘Content Drill down’ and ‘Landing pages’. View the bounce rate as a trend for all content and landing pages on your site. From the high and low bounce rate of your pages gain an understanding from the pages with a higher bounce rate to improve upon.
From a traffic perspective of bounce rate navigate to Acquisition>All Traffic>Channels. Here find out the bounce rate for traffic coming from different sources fig4. Compare the quantum of traffic sent to your site through different sources.
The All Page report fig3 gives the bounce rate for individual pages. Further, drill down to Source/ Medium fig5 and Referrals and find out the bounce rates. The All Traffic report gives the bounce rate for the pair source/ medium. The source indicates the origin of traffic to your website. eg Facebook, Google, Pinterest, etc. Medium represents the means for your traffic to be there. eg organic, paid traffic or referrals
In GA, referrals have to do with the traffic that comes to your site and identifies the sources, pages, and conversion for pages. Go to Acquisition>All Traffic. From the drop-down select referrals fig6 to view the %age of users that convert. For example, a referral website may be sending you a lot of traffic.
Both the traffic perspective and the page perspective focus on the bounce rate and increasing engagements.
Measure the bounce rate of individual search keywords and Google Ads. To find the bounce rate navigate to Acquisition and drill down to Google Ads > Keywords and Google Ads > Campaign.
Bounce Rate in Google Analytics and SEO
Google does not take into consideration GA data in its search algorithm. When visitors land on your site from search engines ensure that they do not bounce back to the search results. This kind of bounce could be measured by GA in a different way and can contribute to a ranking factor although Google disputes this. From an SEO perspective, you need to regularly optimize your site. By drilling down discern the driving force that ultimately leads to performance.
Reducing Bounce Rate in Google Analytics
Reducing bounce rates is all about increasing your customer interaction with your website. This can be achieved by
- Optimizing load times
- Improve UX and branding
- Converting CTA’s.
- Improve Copywriting
- Engaging content
- Page layouts for UX and conversions