Bounce Rate: An Important Statistic to Every Digital Marketer

Consumers today are active and engaged.  They seek out information when they need it and don’t have time in their day to be interrupted with unsolicited sales pitches.  Therefore, a brand’s website is arguably one of the most important marketing communication channels a marketer can leverage today.  So as marketers, it’s our job to make sure our websites are performing to the best of its abilities.  But exactly how can we do this?  It all starts with web analytics!  

One of the most important web analytics a marketer should focus on is bounce rates.  A bounce rate is defined as the percentage of visitors who come to your website and leave without viewing any other pages on your website.  Bounce rates are an important metric for marketers to understand because high bounce rates mean that the visitor either didn’t find what he/she was looking for or that your webpage was too difficult you use.  A high bounce rate is significant since it indicates that your website visitors aren’t looking for additional content on your website, clicking on your calls-to-action, or converting into leads and/or sales.

But what exactly what qualifies as a high bounce rate?  The average bounce rate per website changes based on the type of brand website.  Below are some good benchmark averages to use for each type of website’s bounce rate.

Type of Website	Average Bounce Rate
Content Websites	40 – 60 percent
Lead Generation Websites	30 – 50 percent
Blogs	70 – 98 percent
Retail Sites	20 – 40 percent
Service Sites	10 – 30 percent
Landing Pages	70 – 90 percent

If you’re average bounce rate is 65%, this means that 65% of the people who come to your website leave after only viewing the page they entered on, whether it was your homepage or an internal page.  If your website’s bounce rate is significantly higher than the benchmark rate listed above, there are several things you can do to lower your bounce rate, including:

• Improve your content’s readability.  Bold and enlarge headlines, utilize bullet points, use graphics to break up text, and bold keywords. 
• Create a compelling call-to-action.  Your call to action should be clearly written and able to spot in 3 seconds or less. 
• Add links.  Link out to other content on your site that is relevant to users.
• Make sure your website is mobile friendly.  Put your website to the test with Google’s mobile friendly test tool.  If your website is not mobile responsive, those viewing it from a mobile device will likely bounce off your website.
• Speed up page load times.  Set external links to open in new windows and do not let ads distract the viewer.  Place ads to the sides and avoid self-loading multimedia ads as well as pop-up ads.  Also stay-a-way from third-party content and widgets as they weigh down the site and increase load time.  
• Provide good content.  Content should be tailored to intended visitors, be well written have a concise call to action, and provide obvious next step.

Note that the list above is not all-inclusive.  In fact, it barely scratches the surface of things marketers can do to improve their bounce rate.  However, I’d like to leave you with a tip of advice from freelance writer, blogger, and social media enthusiast Kristi Hines who states that if you can’t keep visitors on your site, the best you can do is ensure they return time and time again by giving them accessible links to your website through social media, newsletters, and other online properties.  A viewer may leave your website but become a fan of you on social media, bringing them back time and time again!