It sounds fun, but your site’s bounce rate has nothing to do with trampolines, balloons or pillow fights. ‘Bounce rate’ is a term used to describe the percentage of new visitors to a site, then leave without visiting any other pages. Essentially, they’re ‘bouncing’ off.

What your bounce rate means

Your site’s bounce rate could be telling you a number of things about your web site content.

If your bounce rate is low – under 40% – then it’s telling you that your site is engaging and invites users to explore further. That is, you’re doing a good job – keep it up!

If your bounce rate is high (over 50%, for example) it could mean that:

  • visitors are not being engaged by your site’s content
  • they’re encountering something that drives them away – like an error, a broken link, or confusing text
  • your site is not what the user was expecting. This can be the case if you have an advert or link on another site that is misleading. If a user clicks on a link expecting to see dog grooming information, they’re going to be very surprised if they arrive on a site selling hammers. Chances are they’re going to hit the back button – and quickly!

But wait – it could be a good thing

While a high bounce rate often means that your site’s content needs attention, it may not be a bad thing.

If your site is simple and contains all the information that your visitor needs on one page, then might not need to click anywhere else. In this case a high bounce rate isn’t negative.

Your page’s page’s primary goal might be really specific. You might want users to:

  • call a phone number
  • send an email enquiry
  • download a file
  • watch a video
  • click a link to another site.

Users who do this will still contribute to your bounce rate, even though the page has successfully ‘converted’ them.

Blogs and news-oriented sites often show high bounce rates. Visitors will follow a link to a particular post, read it, then move on.

There’s always room for improvement

A high bounce rate may not harm your business. But lowering it will almost certainly yield benefits for your online marketing efforts.

If you have a high bounce rate – even if your site is in one of the typical high bounce rate categories – there may be ways to improve it. You might want to think about:

  • looking for possible errors
  • changing the site’s structure
  • reworking the copy
  • looking at your ‘call to action’ statements
  • asking some representative members of your target audience to give you unbiased feedback.
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