website design Columbus Ohio firm's bounce rate from Google Analytics

We live in the world of web design and SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and there was one metric in Google Analytics we always wondered about, but until now, never researched in any detail. That is: the “bounce rate” of a website.

First, the quick facts:

  • No website has a 0% bounce rate, or even a 20% bounce rate
  • The average website "bounce rate" is 50%
  • If it's more than 60%, then you need to make changes

What is a “bounce rate”?

Well, Google’s definition of a bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to your website that come in, and leave, on the same page. It is considered a “single page view.”

What it supposedly means, is that the person that landed on your website didn’t find what they were looking for on the first page they saw, and determined that they came to the wrong website.

The reason to be concerned about it is, if your website has a very high bounce rate, then Google Analytics knows that and could determine your website isn’t worthy of ranking well. And you don’t want that!

When is a high “bounce rate” not a good indicator?

But there are exceptions as to why the bounce rate isn’t a good metric, and we’ll use one of our client’s website as an example: the Short North Arts District website. They have a high bounce rate, but there’s good reason, and it isn’t because people landed on it and didn’t find just what they we were looking for.

In the Short North’s website’s case, that site does a better job of SEO than the small independent shops that are listed on the Short North’s website. When someone Googles a restaurant, clothing shop, or art gallery in with the words “Short North” as part of their search query (ie: "womens clothing store short north"), the results Google shows for that restaurant, clothing shop, or art gallery are on the Short North Arts District’s website, not the individual restaurant, clothing shop, or art gallery’s websites.

So someone Googles “XYZ art gallery Short North” and the top few listings are Short North Arts District website. SO that’s what the visitor clicks on and goes right to the Short North’s website.

However, there is only limited information on the Short North’s website about that gallery (or any business), so there’s also a direct link to that gallery’s website on the Short North website. So when the person sees that link to the XYZ Gallery’s website on the Short North Arts District website, they click it to go the gallery’s site.

While that’s an instance where the person comes in, and leaves, on the same page, they did ind what they wanted: a link to the XYZ Gallery’s website. So The Short North Arts District website has a higher than normal bounce rate, but that does;t mean someone didn’t find what they were looking for on that website.

Granted, the independent shops do a great job with the social media, but Facebook doesn’t let Google search their website, so you’ll never see any Facebook links on Google’s search results page. Facebook wants you to use Facebook to do your searching. So while Facebook results don’t show up in Google, Google’s Analytics does track when someone comes to your site through Facebook.

You wouldn’t think Google and Facebook are at odds with each other, but they are. They’re in the battle for your eyeballs, and which site you spend more time on.

What is a “good” bounce rate?

You would think anything more than a 0% bounce rate wouldn’t be “good,” right? I mean, if your website is so good, and people land on it when they search for what you do, why would anyone leave from the same page they come in on?

Well, there’s a few things to addresses here:

  • No website has a 0% bounce rate (or it turns out, even a 20% bounce rate),
  • What is a “good” bounce rate? Well, one can say “anything better than your competitor’s bounce rates,” and
  • What is the “average bounce rate,” which is more of an indicator of how good yours is.

There was a blog by RocketFuel.com that did their own test/study on bounce rates, so it seems they had good numbers to work from.

They researched Analytics from 60 websites (some their clients, some not) over the course of year. Granted, 60 websites might not be a huge number of sites to study, but they pulled from a variety of sites: some with 1,000,000 unique monthly visitors, some with “only” a few thousand unique monthly visitors.

They found most website’s bounce rates fall between 26% and 70%, with the average bounce rate being 45%.

The "average" bounce rate

Bounce rates, like golf scores, are bette when they’re lower. They concluded bounce rates of:

  • 26% to 40% is excellent,
  • 41% to 55% is average, and
  • 56% to 70% higher than average

One thing they indicated was, a bounce rate of over 70% was bad, other than for blogs, and news sites. Why they cited that stipulation, I can’t say.

So if your bounce rate is about 50%, it’s not as disastrous as you might think, when even the best websites have a bounce rate of about 33% - 40%.

If your bounce rate is over 50%

If yours is over 50%, then it would be time to do a few things:

  1. See which pages people are coming in and leaving. Maybe those pages have a 60% or 70% bounce rate, so you would want to change them so they don’t have such a high bounce rate, thereby lowering your overall bounce rate numbers, or
  2. Find out which segment of your audience are coming in and leaving on the same page and maybe stop marketing to them, since they are skewing the numbers for the audience who IS finding you website worthwhile is spending time on it.
  3. If your site isn’t a mobile site, time to do something about it. When 50% of the searches in 2014 are done on mobile devices, looking at a traditional website on a phone is a bad experience. And folks will quickly bounce from a traditional website when on their phones.

The author’s results showed that the average bounce rate for mobile was 10% to 20% higher than for desktops. So the average bounce rate from mobile devices was about 60%, for tablets, about 50%, and for desktops, about 40%.

When a bounce rate over 50% isn’t so bad

There are times when a higher bounce rate isn’t so bad and is understandable: if some pages on your website are based around events or scheduling. Say you’re a soccer club or movie theater, and people want to find the next movie time or the next practice or game.

In that case, it’s understandable people might once in and leave on the same page, because they did find the information they came for. So your user’s needs are being met and there’s really no way around that.

Do you have a bounce rate of under 20%?

If you do, then there’s probably a problem with your Analytics, since evidently, no site is that good. You might look into your Analytics to see if you have two accounts, or if the tracking was incorrectly implemented.

On a website that revolves around events, visitors often want the time, date, location, and that’s it. They get the information. They leave. The bounce rate on that website will skew towards a higher percentage, but that’s fine, because the user’s needs are still being met - See more at: http://www.gorocketfuel.com/the-rocket-blog/whats-the-average-bounce-rat..., if your website is centered around listing events, (say you’re a soccer club or movie theater), then visitors might only want to find out the time of a movie or the next game. In that case, they’s likely come in and leave on the same page

What if someone spends 5 minutes on 1 page?

What if someone comes to a blog post (maybe they landed on that page from a social media post teaser you did for that blog, like we’ve done for this blog post), they read the entire blog post over a 5 or 10 minute period, then leave?

Technically, they came in and left on the same page, but they certainly found what they were looking for. But that counts as a bounce, and therefore count against your website with your Analytics.

How can we convince Google Analytics that, even though someone was only on one page, they found it helpful? Well, turns out there is a way.

The only way Google can tell how long someone is on a page, is to have the visitor do something that tracks their time on the page.

So for example: at time stamp 0:00 someone lands on this blog post page. If we could encourage them click a link, say to email us, go to an infographic, or to another page in your website, the time stamp would show that, say, at 3 minutes and 50 seconds, they clicked a link. That shows Google’s Analytics that they were on the page for almost 4 minutes, and that doesn’t count as a bounce.

So unless there’s a second interaction (the first being they landed on the page) that one page view that lasted 5 minutes, counts as a bounce.

We’re thinking this is more information than you ever wanted to know about bounce rates, but to us, it is critical. Fortunately, we also find it interesting.

When the time comes that you are looking for a Columbus Ohio web design firm who keeps up on Google to help your website work harder for you, then talk to this Columbus web design company. We keep on top of this stuff so you don’t have to. Contact us so we can start that conversation.