What Is Bounce Rate In Google Analytics? How To Reduce It?

What is bounce rate in google analytics and how to reduce bounce rate is the most frequently asked question from the bloggers who don�t know or have a little knowledge about wordpress blog analysis.

Bounce rate is very important metrics for our blogs or websites. Bounce rate helps bloggers to analyze their blog and to improve performance of blogs. But the main important parameter is the correct interpretation of google analytics bounce rate data. Let�s first see what is bounce rate in google analytics.

What Is Bounce Rate? What Does Bounce Rate Mean?

The google defines bounce rate as:

�The bounce rate is the percentage of bounced visits to your blog�

In simple words, bounce rate is the percentage of single page visits or visits in which the visitors leave or bounce your blog from the landing page.

Therefore lower bounce rate is better for your blog and of course for bloggers. Because lower bounce rate indicates that majority of your visitors are interested in reading other great content on your blog.

Bounce Rate And Exit Rate � Same Or Different?

Do you know what exit rate is? Perhaps you may be confused between bounce rate and exit rate. Are both terms bounce rate and exit rate same or different? Yes, both the metrics bounce rate and exit rate are different.

Bounce rate Vs Exit Rate

You now clearly know what does bounce rate mean. But bounce rate sometimes confuses bloggers with exit rate. Both are completely different metrics in google analytics.

What is bounce rate?

�Bounce rate represents the percentage of visitors who enter the site and bounce means leave the blog rather than continue reading other pages or posts within the same blog�

What is exit rate?

�Exit rate represents the percentage of visitors to a blog who actively click away to a different blog or website from a specific page, after possibly having visited any other pages or posts on the blog but the visitors just exited from that specific page�

Now I can assume that you can have clear idea what does bounce rate and exit rate mean.

Which Visitors Are Calculated As Bounced Visitors?

The following visits or clicks are counted as the bounce visits:

#1. A visitor comes from the referred link sent by a friend or anyone else, reads the content on that page of your blog and closes the browser.

#2. A visitor comes to your blog and clicks on the external referred link in your page and that external link opens in the same browser tab or window.

#3. A visitor comes to your blog home page, observe or read your home page for a minute or two and then leave your blog.

#4. A visitor reads landing page of your blog and clicks the back button on browser.

#5. A visitor comes directly to your blog�s referred page from a web search, leaves that page as it is in browser while performing other tasks in other browser tab or window and the session timed out.

#6. A visitor, who comes on your blog page, reads it and without visiting a second page types new url in browser.

How Bounce Rate Is Calculated?

Now you know what bounce rate in google analytics is and which types of clicks are counted as bounce clicks. So, let�s see how to calculate the bounce rate.

Bounce Rate = Total No. Of Visitors Who Only View Single Page/ Total No. Of Visitors Who Enter To That Page

For example, if your page receives total 500 visitors and from this 185 visitors leave your page without viewing second page (due to any of the mention reasons for bouncing above), your bounce rate is,

Bounce Rate= 185/500=0.37 OR 37%

I think you got it now. No need to explain further about calculating google analytics bounce rate.

What Is A Good And Ideal Bounce Rate?

I am so many times asked that what the normal or average bounce rate is. Bounce rate differs depending on the type of the blogs or websites.

It is difficult to say what is the ideal bounce rate and what should be the good range for bounce rate.

According to me,

No doubt, 0 % is the ideal bounce rate but it is nearly impossible for all bloggers to achieve this bounce rate.

If your blog have bounce rate below 30%, then no need to worry. It�s a good and normal bounce rate.

If your blog have bounce rate between 30% to 60%, then it is the range where most of the blogs stand. You do not need to worry more but have to monitor your bounce rate and decrease to reduce bounce rate.

If your blog have bounce rate above 60%, then it�s a high bounce rate. You should think about it and try to reduce bounce rate.

Importance Of Understanding Bounce Rate In Google Analytics

Till now you know what is bounce rate and how to calculate it. But you may be thinking that why it is important to understand about bounce rate and how it can be useful to bloggers.

Below are few benefits you can get from understanding your blog bounce rate:

#1. If your bounce rate is lower, it assures you that you are doing many things in right direction.

#2. If your bounce rate is higher, it tells you to think and find out the ways to increase engaging power of your blog. Higher bounce rate indicates you to improve content on your blog pages.

#3. If your blog design is responsible for higher bounce rate, then it indicates redesign of your blog.

#4. As I said before, bounce rate is a good indicator of the quality of traffic coming to your blog.

#5. Bounce rate data shows you which pages make visitors sticky and attract them. So you can create similar pages.

#6. Bounce rate shows you that how much engaging power your blog have.

#7. Watch your advertising market like adwords (or other PPC) has increased bounce rate and adjust your marketing accordingly.

#8. You can analyze whether organic traffic is perfect for your blog or if you are ranking for keywords that don�t interest and hold visitors.

Watch the video below and you will know why Avinash Kaushik calls bounce rate the �Brilliantly Powerful Metric�

How To Reduce Bounce Rate

Here are few tips to decrease your blog bounce rate:

#1. Improve your blog pages loading speed

#2. Remove unnecessary audio and video clips from your blog

#3. Attractive blog design helps in reducing bounce rate

#4. Make your blog layout compatible with all possible browsers

#5. Where necessary, add proper and meaningful images

#6. Always write important content above the fold

#7. Show related posts / content on each pages

#8. Remove all distractions from blog pages

#9. Focus on clean and easy navigation

#10. Keep your blog always updated

#11. Make visitors search your blog, add a search box to pages

#12. Add contact form for readers to contact you

#13. Smartly interlink all your blog posts and pages

#14. Wisely make use of sidebar of your blog to reduce bounce rate

#15. Breakdown (split) long posts / pages

#16. Do not fill your blog with so many ads

#17. Always make all external links on pages open in new tab / window

Final Words

In a nutshell,

Lower the bounce rate of blogs, Higher the bounce of bloggers

Do you like this detailed explanation for what is bounce rate? Is this post helpful to you? I do my job, now it�s your turn. Use the comment section below and write your precious thoughts or doubts. If you like this post, please consider sharing this post on social media sites. So other bloggers can also take benefits.
source: howtostartbloggingtips.com
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