How to interpret bounce rate
Before we got to what the bounce rate means for your website, let's start with what the bounce rate even is. When a visitor bounces, it means that they only visited one page, but they also didn't interact with the page (for example, played a video or downloaded a file).
You can find the average bounce rate for your website in the analytics dashboard (unless you have removed that widget), but also in your visitor overview.
You find the bounce rate for paths or specifics pages if you go to "Behavior/Pages".
Is a high bounce rate always bad?
Yes and no. It fully depends on what type of page it is and how the visitors found the page. Take a navigation page as an example. On this page, the visitors are supposed to find the direction in which they want to navigate. Perhaps they want to look at shirts, or maybe they are more interested in shoes. If this page has a high bounce rate, it means that it doesn't fulfil its purpose. It is supposed to make the visitors move on to a different page, especially since it doesn't give the visitors the information they were seeking. This type of page, one that encourages further navigation, should have a low bounce rate.
On the other hand, an article or informational page can give the visitors the answers they were looking for without moving on to another page on the website, and therefore, a high bounce is not necessarily a bad thing. It can even be a good thing, indicating that the page includes the information it should.
What is a good bounce rate?
Since different pages encourages different actions from the visitors, there isn't one range of good bounce rates and one of bad. It depends on the page. The bounce rate can also mean different things in different contexts.
Say one of your pages has a bounce rate of 70%. That sounds high. But let's looks at it from two different contexts.
1) Your visitors found this page from a specific search in a search engine. It answers all the questions they had and they left after reading.
2) Your visitors found this page from a specific search in a search engine. It does not answers all the questions they had and they left out of frustration.
In the first case, your SEO is precise and you have good information on your website. In the second case, either the SEO is lacking, the information is lacking, or both are lacking.
Let's look at two more examples. In this case, the bounce rate is 20%.
1) Your visitors found this page from a specific search in a search engine. It answers all the questions they had, and out of curiosity, they move on to other pages to see what else you have to offer.
2) Your visitors found this page from a specific search in a search engine. It does not answers all the questions they had, but thinking that it should be somewhere on your website, they continue their search on other pages.
In the first case, the information on your website is not only good, but engaging. In the second case, the information is lacking and leaving the visitors frustrated.
As you can see, there is good and bad with both a high and a low bounce rate. But, you may ask, how do you know which is the case for you? Are they leaving satisfied or frustrated? Honestly, you can't know that with only web analytics. If you want to measure experience, you need to use surveys too. Through surveys, you can ask the visitors to evaluate the content, ask about their general experience on the website, and get a KPI for how easily the visitors can find the information they are looking for. You can read more about the different survey types Extellio offers here.
Which factors affect the bounce rate?
As mentioned, you cannot draw any conclusions by only looking at the bounce rate, as there are several factors that can affect the rate. Here are some you can find in your analytics:
1) Channels. If you have a good website, you may have a high bounce from visitors from search engines, or that have bookmarked pages with information they need to check regularly. Direct entries where people start on the home page, that should probably have a low bounce.
2) Type of page. Pages that encourage further navigation should have a low bounce, but pages that can give the information the visitors were looking for without moving on might have a high bounce rate.
3) Time on page. A satisfied visitor is likely to stay longer than an unsatisfied, but type of page is important here. The more to read, the longer they should stay. However, not only does the time on page affect how to interpret the bounce, but the bounce also affects the time spent on the page. Read more here.
4) Loading time. If you have a high bounce and a long loading time for the page, it's likely that the visitors got frustrated and left because of technical issues.
