{"id":575,"date":"2014-10-29T14:20:32","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T18:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sharpinnovations.com\/blog\/?p=575"},"modified":"2019-05-16T14:26:53","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T18:26:53","slug":"get-to-know-your-bounce-rate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sharpinnovations.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/get-to-know-your-bounce-rate\/","title":{"rendered":"Get to Know Your Bounce Rate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Analytics drive business decisions every day, and the same should be true for your website. Key website metrics like unique visitors and organic search performance are frequently cited data points. But something called \u201cbounce rate,\u201d can tell an important tale of your site\u2019s overall performance, as well.<\/p>\n

For the unfamiliar, bounce rate is simply the percentage of visitors who hit any page on your website and leave without moving to another page on your site. This is an important metric, because it can help inform a search engine (i.e., Google) whether or not any given page of your website is of high enough quality to be displayed in their search results. This is because a high bounce rate may indicate that visitors to your site are not finding information they want, or are they are finding your site too difficult or uninteresting to use. Consistently high bounce rates is one of many factors that can ultimately result in poor search results for your site. On the other hand, a low bounce rate can indicate that your landing page was relevant, and the visitor is engaged in whatever conversion you may have set-up on your website (to continue reading, fill out a form, contact your company, add an item to their cart, etc.).<\/p>\n

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A decrease in the bounce rate leads to increases in other areas like the average session duration, as the pages customers land on are more relevant to them.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While it\u2019s true that lower bounce rates are always better, there are instances where a high bounce rate might be still be expected and considered \u201cnormal,\u201d like a contact us page that directs visitors to call your place of business. You would expect on this page that the bounce rate would be high, as visitors are likely looking for the businesses phone number in the first place, and then effectively closing the window after they\u2019ve placed a call. So, the bounce rate in this scenario would be high, but the outcome is still good.<\/p>\n

What may come as a surprise is that what is considered an \u201cacceptable\u201d bounce rate can vary widely by industry and type of website. Depending on your specific industry and target audience, an average<\/i> bounce rate can range from 10-98%! Regardless of what your particular industry\u2019s bounce rate average might be, you\u2019ll likely have more success comparing the data with your own<\/i> historic website data. This will give a much truer picture of how you are performing than looking at an industry average. That being said, here are a few benchmark averages for bounce rate, courtesy of QuickSprout.com<\/a>:<\/p>\n