The bounce rate is an important metric in search engine optimization, as it indicates whether the website or its content offers added value at first glance. The influences on the bounce rate are extensive and are examined in more detail in this glossary.
What is a bounce rate?
The term “bounce rate” comes from the field of web analytics and is intended to reflect in percentage terms how visitors behave on a website. If many visitors leave the website again within a very short time, this results in a high bounce rate. Another term for this is “bounce rate”.
The importance of the bounce rate
The evaluation of the bounce rate depends on the destination and the content of the website. Well-known brands or institutions usually have a very low bounce rate, as users specifically search for these brands. Other, much less well-known brands have a higher bounce rate. For Google Ads landing pages, this value is often even higher than usual, as visitors are quicker to assess whether the content is relevant or not.
What influence does a high bounce rate have?
If a visitor comes to the website through an organic search result and therefore does not interact with it, this is not necessarily a major problem. The user may have found the necessary information immediately and does not need to engage further with the content, but contrary to the myth, a high bounce rate is not an indication of poor content. Contact pages usually have a higher bounce rate because the necessary information is immediately visible. On other pages, however, the operator would prefer to see a high dwell time and therefore rates a high bounce rate as negative.
What is the significance of dwell time?
A session duration is only negative if this results from the context. In contrast to information pages, a longer dwell time is desired for landing pages, as these pages are also intended to increase sales. A good way to measure the effectiveness of this is event tracking. This works with Google Analytics, for example.
Which measures lead to an improved bounce rate?
The bounce rate is influenced by various factors, but can also be improved by various factors.
The following measures can be taken:
- Reduce the number of advertising banners
- Improve the loading speed of the website
- Make the design more user-friendly
- Possibly align content better
- Design user-friendly navigation
These measures can primarily be implemented effectively if the data from tools such as Google Analytics is read correctly. This can also be used to determine which individual factors are important.
What is an exit rate?
The exit rate (exit page) is a metric that appears when the visitor has accessed at least one other subpage. This is also the difference to the bounce rate, because in this case the user has not clicked on any further internal links. The exit page makes it possible to track the subpages through which interested parties have left the website, but a high exit rate is not a decisive reason for optimization in this case either. Some subpages are the logical exit page. However, if it is a page from which a lead or a conversion is to be generated, then improvements must be made accordingly.
What bounce rate is normal in which industry?
The following data is considered normal with regard to the bounce rate:
- 40-60 percent for content websites
- 10-40 percent for retail websites
- 70-98 percent for blog articles
- The influence of the bounce rate on the Google ranking is considered controversial. The SERP return rate is usually selected as the criterion. This shows the time between clicking on the search result and the point at which users return to the search engine. This value is much more meaningful in terms of quality, but the bounce rate still plays a role, as it can be used to determine whether the content of the website is user-friendly and whether the content matches the search intention. Visitors will then have the feeling that they have received the necessary data and this also has a certain influence on branding.
