You might have seen the term “bounce rate” in Google Analytics, or maybe you have heard it mentioned by your web designer or an associate. What is bounce rate? Is it critical for your website? Let’s dive in and learn more.
What is Bounce Rate?
Put simply, this key number is a measure of visit quality. If a visitor immediately leaves your site after one page without visiting a second page, that counts towards your bounce rate. Google sees it as a measure of your site’s engagement. Websites that can keep viewers around longer are statistically perceived as being more relevant to users since they stay engaged longer.
How is it Calculated?
Divide the total number of one-page visits by the total number of entries to the website. This is how you calculate the rate for your site. As an example, if the website receives 1,000 visitors that week and 500 of them leave the site after just viewing one page, the bounce rate would be 50%.
What is a Good Bounce Rate?
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The average value for this rate varies depending on the site type. HubSpot has listed an approximate benchmark of bounce rates by industry. These numbers can give you a general guideline for what the averages are in your industry.
- Content Websites: 40-60%
- Lead Generation Websites: 30-50%
- Blog Posts: 70-90%
- Retail/eCommerce Sites: 20-40%
- Service Websites: 10-30%
- Landing Pages: 70-90%
Is it Critical to Your Site?
The short answer is yes, this number is critical to your site. For starters, your bounce rate will impact your SEO. You want great SEO so that search engines will send visitors your way. Most importantly, you want to keep visitors engaged. If people are clicking away after visiting only one page on your site then you are losing potential leads. Create an inviting, easy to navigate website with compelling content so that visitors will want to spend more time on your site.
What is bounce rate? Hopefully, you can use our tips above to get a better understanding of this important metric. You might also want to take a closer look at another component of SEO. Read more about the SEO of images to learn our best tips. You can also book our SEO services and let us help you!