The phrase website bounce rate came up often with clients and friends. Many bloggers or webmasters do not understand fully what it meant for their websites because they’re too busy.
So, I hope in this blog post to clear that up for many who are not quite sure what it means. It’s not the easiest concept to understand while running your blog, website, or small business.
Table of Contents
What Is Bounce Rate?
According to Google, a website bounce rate is:
The percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page.
So, if it is based on the number of people who navigate away from your website page, can you see why a lower percentage bounce rate is what to strive for?
If people like what they see when they land on your blog post or website they will stay longer while driving your bounce rate down.
Therefore, they will check out your related posts and other pages. That is another reason why internal linking is important to keep readers on your site longer.
(That is unless, of course, they make a quick purchase, download, or fill out a form.) In that case, a lower bounce rate is a good thing.
This can often happen for affiliates. The affiliate link takes users to another site to make an actual purchase.
How to Calculate Your Own Bounce Rate?
A website’s bounce rate is calculated by dividing the number of single-page sessions by the number of total sessions on the site.
For example, if 100 users land on your website (total sessions) and 5 of the users exit without triggering another request (single-page sessions), your website’s bounce rate is 5%.
What is a Good Bounce Rate to Strive For?
I personally like to see 50% or lower for a website’s bounce rate. 50% is considered an average bounce rate.
Of course, it depends on the niche and if a site is informational or an e-commerce site.
How To Find Your Bounce Rates
You need to have your Google Analytics set up for your website or blog. If you don’t have yours set up yet, check out Mayura’s Post on how to. From your dashboard follow the steps below:
- Go to Acquisition.
- Then go to All Traffic. I love this feature of Google Analytics – it gives you a lot of insights.
- Check your top 50 and notice the bounce rate for each.
It is interesting to see which has the lower bounce rates. For me, it’s Google organic and other referring blogs and websites.
Returning visitors also lower my bounce rate and new visits seem to track higher.
This means I have some work to do on those new visits. How is your website bounce rate measured?
Also Check:
- Audience Behavior.
- New Vs. Returning. This is where I’ve noticed a much lower bounce rate for return visitors and a higher bounce rate for new visitors. Important information to know and to work with.
- Technology – You can drill down more and see what drives bounce rate, tablet, desktop, or mobile. More great info!
- Keywords – You can even check your top keywords and their bounce rates as well.
- Goals – If you have goals set up for purchases, downloads, and such you can track those. Most of the time they will have lower website bounce rates.
6 Things You Can Do To Decrease Your Numbers
- Use Internal Linking – This is very important. Be sure every post and page has internal links to other relevant parts of your overall website. Do not link just to link! People will get frustrated and leave quickly. They may not come back.
- Don’t Deceive – Do not deceive the audience with titles that have nothing to do with your post or page. This holds true when sharing on social networks. If someone clicks because of a title, they will not stay if it’s not related to that title. It’s like false advertising.
- Make External links Open to New Window – Be sure external links open to a new window and that your internal links do not! They should flow right to the other page or post on your website in the same window.
- Optimize Your Pages or Posts – Be sure they coincide with the search terms. Use a plugin like Yoast for SEO.
- Show Related Posts – There are several plugins that can do this for you. It’s a great way to keep visitors on your blog and may increase their engagement as well.
- Keep Your Website Clean – No one wants to visit a cluttered website, be careful of what’s in those sidebars! Having your most popular posts there will help to draw more folks to them if they are displayed nicely on your sidebar.
7 More Things You Can Do to Lower Your Rate
- Check Your Browser Capability – If you have a high website bounce rate it could be because your site is not functioning well in certain browsers. You can use a site for FREE called Browser Shots.
- Check Your Site Speed – If your website is slow chances are that your website bounce rate may be high as well.
- Nasty Pop-Ups – Many web users do not like to deal with pop-ups that they can not easily click away from and may leave your website because of them. You should be able to tell from the Google Analytics pages if this is the case.
- Use A Clean Typeface – Is your typeface easy to read? Do readers have to squint? Be sure the font is readable and big enough.
- Don’t Use Backgrounds That Give Headaches – Have you landed on a page with a zig-zag background or one with lots of things going on that gives you a headache? Keep your backgrounds clean for ease of readability and a lower bounce rate.
- Provide Useful Content – Is the content useful to your readers? Or is there to fill space only? If it is not useful to your readers you may want to reconsider posting or changing the copy on that particular post or page.
- Customize Your 404 Page – You could add links to other pages and posts of interest on your 404 page. This would give visitors who land their more options of where to go on your website and may keep them there longer to decrease your bounce rate. A fun image there would be helpful too.
Read more from SEJ on more reasons for high bounce rates.
Your Take on Website Bounce Rates
Were you surprised by your website bounce rates?
Was there a stat in Google Analytics that surprised you about your own website bounce rate? Have you been able to drop your average website bounce rate down?
Finally, please drop a comment so we can discuss your website bounce rate.
Understanding Bounce Rates on Your Website: FAQs
What is a bounce rate?
A bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who land on a web page and leave without taking any further action, like clicking on a link, filling out a form, or visiting another page.
Why is a website high bounce rate bad?
A high bounce rate might indicate that visitors aren’t finding what they’re looking for or that the page load time is too slow. It suggests that the content or experience isn’t engaging enough to keep them on your site.
What’s considered a “good” bounce rate?
Typical bounce rates vary by industry, but generally, a bounce rate between 26% to 40% is considered excellent, 41% to 55% is average, while anything over 70% may indicate a problem.
How can I reduce my bounce rate?
You can improve your bounce rate by enhancing page load speed, ensuring your content meets user intent, optimizing for mobile, using clear calls-to-action, and minimizing distractions on your landing pages.
Does a low bounce rate always mean my site is doing well?
Not necessarily. A low bounce rate can sometimes mean users are confused or can’t find what they’re looking for, leading them to click through more pages. Ensure that the user journey is intuitive and the content relevant.
How does SEO affect bounce rate?
SEO helps attract the right audience to your site. If your SEO strategy aligns with user intent, bounce rate may decrease. However, misleading meta descriptions or irrelevant keywords can lead to higher bounce rates.
Can a high bounce rate affect my search rankings?
Yes, a consistent high bounce rate might affect search rankings as it can signal to search engines that your site isn’t providing value or relevance to visitors.
Are there tools to help analyze bounce rate?
Yes, Google Analytics is the most popular tool for tracking bounce rates. It provides detailed insights into user behavior and can help you identify pages with high bounce rates for optimization.
How does mobile usability impact it?
Mobile usability significantly impacts bounce rate. A non-responsive design, slow load times, or poor navigation can frustrate mobile users, leading to a higher bounce rate.
What role does content play in the rate?
Content is crucial in engaging visitors and encouraging them to explore further. Relevant, high-quality, and well-organized content can lower bounce rates by keeping users interested and moving through your site.
How often should I check my rate?
Regularly monitor your bounce rate, at least monthly, to catch trends quickly. Frequent checks allow you to respond to changes in user behavior and make timely improvements.
She has 30+ years of experience in marketing/advertising with 12 years of experience in content marketing, social media, blogging, and SEO.
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Bounce rates can vary depending on the type of website, but I want to second that recommendation to internally link as much as possible and also the suggestion to open external links in a new tab. We do this as standard practice, and even sometimes set up the “about blank” for internal links from one blog post to another. That way, they don’t lose the first one when opening the second, since the links tend to be weaved into the content.
We tend to have a higher bounce rate on our domain. But that’s because people most often arrive on blog posts, read it, and exit once they find the answer to whatever problem we’re writing about. Still, we get leads on subsequent visits quite often, so we live with the elevated bounce rate even though it may very well be suppressing us on Google. Priorities, right?
Hi Tommy, welcome to Inspire To Thrive! Oh yes, I have been looking over my external links and making sure they do open in a new tab. You make an excellent point about finding what readers need and leaving can make a higher bounce rate. Thanks for that input. Hopefully they come back for more info the next time they need answers as well. Thanks for coming by and have a great day Tommy.
Lisa,
I list pricing on my website for some of my services. I used to have pricing on my SEO’d pages, but to reduce bounce rate I just updated the ranking page to link to another page with the prices. I like how you’ve created “resource pages” for some of your on-topic posts. Great internal linking strategy.
All the best -Russ
Hi Russell, thank you. I’m in the process of starting some services and pricing. It seems to be a catch-22 whether to have the pricing on or not. But I know from my own purchasing experience, I like to see prices. Otherwise you think it’s very expensive if you have to inquire, right? Thanks for coming by and for the compliments.
Lisa, I debated for a long time whether or not to add prices, but I’ve found that it does a few things for me. 1. It helps my prospects know what to expect 2. It makes it easier to talk to prospects, as the published prices feel more credible 3. It gives people what they really want. Because very few people actually publish their prices.
Thanks Russell for your input on that one.
Hi Lisa!
I found your totally excellent blog, because of my coach and mentor Adrienne Smith. But it was while studying on Kumars blog, I noticed your blog post headline and decided to check out things more closely.
It’s turned out to be a very good decision on my part!
This is an excellent post! You covered so much! And have certainly given everybody a ton to consider, in terms of creating a far more receptive online environment for our particular target audiences.
Each one of these excellent points can easily stand on their own and be both an individual blog post and or “how to” educational video or pod cast as well!
I definitely will be creating some very good content, as a direct result of reading your excellent post! Thank you!
Thank you! I’ve learned a lot!
And I’ll be studying here way more often going forward!
Thank you Mark and welcome to Inspire to Thrive. Glad to hear you have learned a lot. I try to share everything I’ve learned online over the years. It changes quickly too. Now I must work on a video soon for a future post. I had a goal to complete it by March 31st but several offline things needed my attention. I hope you have a great day and that I see you back here again.
Hey Lisa,
Nice post and Yes, bounce rate really plays an important factor in blogging. Lower the bounce rate, more happier we are. Interlinking really plays an important role in decreasing bounce rate. Site speed also plays an important factor because if site speed is very low it cause to switch reader from our blog. I will surely gonna all tips you share for reducing bounce rate. Thanks for sharing this post.
Thanks Sudipto. Many bloggers are unaware of the interlinking factor. Speed sure does too, who wants to wait for your slow site to load up, right? You are welcome and have a nice day Sudipto.
Hey Lisa,
Honestly this is the best and most descriptive post i ever found on Bounce rate. However, i just checked mine and it was bit scary to see the bounce rate in 60-70%. Can you give me some tips on how to reduce it too 30-40.
Thanks and Regards
Ashish (Webcipher)
Thank you Ashish. There are 13 tips here on the post on how you can lower yours Ashish. Let me know if you have a specific question on them. Best of luck with it and remember it will take some time too.
Site speed and poor design were reasons behind high bounce rate of my blog. I spent a good time in optimizing my blog for maximum speed and also lightened my pocket on a premium design. Yeah, the things worked, and now my blog’s bounce rate is mere 31 percent. Working to make it even lower.
Hi Rajan, welcome to Inspire to Thrive. Wow, it sounds like you got yours way down now. I will have to check out your theme and my bounce rate again since I’ve recently had some technical work on it to save on speed as well. Thanks for the input and have a great day Rajan.
This is a awesome post, bounce rate is the most important criteria for any blog and sometimes I feel that even google uses this in it’s algo updates to penalise the sites with very high bounce rate. Well the bounce rate also depends on specific niche while for blogs which teach blogging it might be low as readers want to learn new things but for a tech blog it could get higher cause readers are searching for specific piece of information.
Thank you Prateek. Interesting take you have on specific niche – that seems to make a lot of sense. I would not stay around a highly technical blog once I got the answer I was looking for unless it had some amazing images. Thanks for coming by and sharing your thoughts on bounce rate, have a great day!
Hello; I enjoyed the post. I am a blind computer user and don’t use google analytics because it doesn’t play nice with my screen reader. I use stat counter instead. but i have found that alexa.com will show you your bounce rate when you are checking your alexa rankings. My site’s bounce rate right now is at 32 percent. I find that the more traffic i get from outside the u s the higher my bounce rate gets. And I too have noticed that the more new visitors i get the higher the bounce rate goes where as the more familiar someone is with my site the lower the bounce rate will be. a good article that probably cleared up a lot of confusion for a lot of people. Keep up the good work, max
Wow Maxwell, that is so inspriring how you read with your blindness. Oh yes Alexa will show it too. I must compare the two side by side and see how they compare. That is a very good bounce rate Maxwell, especially for a blog! Thank you, I sure will try to. I’d love to know more how you read on computer – have you ever done a post on that?
Hi Lisa; thanks for the complement. I haven’t done a blog post on how i read blogs or leaving comments as a blind person. I don’t really think about it, but maybe I aught to do a post and let people know about my process and the tools i use. I have an interview on another blogger’s site that will be coming out on february 11th that will cover the topic. so i may not need to. but you know what they say there is no harm in taking a post and reworking it for another post. so, we’ll see. that bounce rate is for my website and blog. the blog is an integrated part of the website which is the way i was told to do it for best SEO value. I will be looking forward to your test to see if the bounce rate on alexa and the numbers in google analytics are the same. I do think the bounce rate is pretty good. and just so your readers know before i started getting more active at reading other blogs leaving comments and sharing posts my bounce rate was in the high 50’s if not 60 percent. thanks again and take care, max
Hi Maxwell, I think it would be very interesting to read on how you read online blind. And leaving comments too. I did check the bounce rate and the Alexa was much less for me vs. the Google Analytics. I read from Adrienne Smith that there is a tweak that can be done in the Google ananlytics that will make a difference to. It was interesting to see on Alexa that the newer readers had a lower better bounce rate. You are welcome and have a great day ahead there Maxwell.
Hi Lisa,
Well I’ve written about this subject myself in the past and I think the way Google checks the bounce rate could be improved.
I honestly think that Google put this in place more for business sites then blogs. Take for instance if you have a blog like mine where I have regular visitors that have read a lot of my older posts then you’re not going to get a lot of click through to links I’ve shared in my posts because they’re already read them. I may have slightly more new visitors then regular so the majority of them don’t click through to one of those links then Google just discounts them having even visited. That’s not fair.
I implemented a code last year so that it will time the people who are visiting my post instead of whether or not they click through and it’s reduce my bounce rate significantly. Isn’t that what it’s all about anyway! How long they stay on your site and enjoy your content? Is it really fair to not count them at all because they didn’t click through to another page?
Maybe Google will eventually improve this part but if they don’t at least I’ve gotten mine down significantly to where I’m happy.
Thanks for sharing this because it’s still a topic so many people aren’t sure how to handle. You’ve definitely laid out what they can do to improve theirs.
Have a good week Lisa.
~Adrienne
Hi Adrienne, I was wondering about that after a few commentors mentioned you and a code that you changed. Interesting. I also had suspected that blogs had a higher bounce rate and wasn’t quite sure of the reason, now it is making more sense, thank you for clarifying. Yes, many bloggers do not grasp the bounce rate concept and that’s why I went ahead and wrote on the topic. Appreciate your coming by and helping us out more on this topic Adrienne. Have a great week ahead.
Getting tons of traffic is not big task but getting traffic with good bounce rate is really tough. Personally I believe to get less traffic with lesser bounce rates.
If I get 5k traffic daily with 80% bounce Rate then I will be Sad but if I get 1k Traffic daily with 40% bounce rate I will be happy because Lesser bounce rates shows that we got quality traffic.
When it comes to blog traffic, Traffic quality rules, Quantity doesn’t matter if it has no quality.
Very nice post List.
Hi Atish – yes you do have that right! I found that out with the retail sites I used to do. If the traffic had less bounce rate it meant more sales. Traffic didn’t always generate sales. The same can be said for blogs too – quality over quantity. Thank you for coming by with your input on this one Atish, have a great rest of the weekend.
Thanks for sharing such a great informaton mam.You explained it in really great way.Yes decreasing bounce rate is a important point to think on for every blogger
You are welcome Uday and welcome to Inspire to Thrive. Have you checked your bounce rate out yet? Have a great day.
Hey Lisa,
Great tips for bounce rate. I hadn’t thought about keeping internal links in the same window for bounce rate – as a reader I prefer they open in a new window. I may have to re-think that one. : )
Hi Brent, oh yes, it is supposed to help a lot. I’ve read up on it many places. Maybe you can test it out on some new posts? Thanks for coming by and have a great rest of the weekend Brent.
Hey Lisa,
You’ve covered the topic about which i’m always worried of, i started my journey with something about 80% and still i’m stuck at 50% i’m still not sure what’s the reason behind all this. My site’s bounce rate is still at average, i need to think beyond marketing to persuade my visitors to stay on my blog. I think i should implement internal linking more efficiently, what are your thoughts?
Thanks for sharing the tips.
-Siraj
Hi Siraj, You are not alone with that one. Definately do more internal linking, that is key. Do you use one of those related posts plugins? I see you do NOT, try out one of the plugins for that. You could add your most popular posts via the plugin for that. I do get some traffic from that as well. I hope that helps Siraj. Have a great weekend and let me know if you try those 2 things out and if it helps – you should know in a months time or so.
I need to pay closer attention to my stats in Google Analytics. I suspect I’m around the 50% mark. Regular readers probably just read the most current post but people looking for recipes probably visit multiple posts (or at least I hope!) I have a related posts plugin but I need to get better with doing some internal links when appropriate.
Hi Tanya, yes I try to look at them at least once per month and sometimes more. Good for many stats. That is good that you have that plugin. I bet yours is lower with recipes, they can look over several before trying one. I may be by for some soon. I’m trying to use the crock pot more and always am looking for new recipes. Thanks for coming by and have a great weekend Tanya.
I think I must have analytics installed wrong because it says my bounce rate is 2%. Or is that really bad? Ugh, I am so frustrated with stats.
Hi Jennifer, the smaller the number the better for bounce rate! That’s a great rate if it is correct. I did hear from others that the analytics may need to be tweaked. Check out Tim Bonner’s comment here for more info on that. I may do a follow up as well on it. Thanks for coming by and I hope you stay warm on this cold weekend in New England.
Hi Lisa,
Thank you for a very informative post. The 13 tips are much appreciated! I’m really liking what I’m seeing in the comments here. I especially like Sylviu’s suggestions. I’ve been able to bring my bounce rate down to 16.87% This may be attributed to the longer posts I have progressed to, as compared to when I first began blogging.
Have an awesome weekend!
Bill
Hi William, your are in the longer post camp, interesting. I had posted longer ones here this past year up from the 300-500 range to 700-1200 range. I don’t think I’ve done one longer yet. Something to strive for and test as well. Thanks for your input Bill and have yourself a nice weekend!
Hello,
Well bounce rate is something which I haven’t got it till now. Though I think it seems a tricky one. Sometimes the bounce rate of a blog would be higher and sometimes it would be lower. I guess I must follow some strategies to lower it.
Thanks
Hi Robert, do try some of the strategies out and let me know after a month if you do notice a difference. Welcome to Inspire to Thrive. Hope to see you back in the near future. Have a great weekend.
Hello Lisa,
My bounce rate stands as I type at 23% (I guess I need to go celebrate, considering 50% to be a healthy average). However, that 23% has not been an easy feat to achieve, I must be sincere. Enumerated below are the three greatest things I discovered that brought me a healthier bounce rate (my usual average was 78% when I set off blogging).
1. I stopped advertising in the wrong places. It is no rocket science that attracting the wrong audience to your site is simply courting problem (a high bounce rate); why should they stay?
2. I began publishing daily and nicely interlinking all my entries! This brought about a surge in traffic that translated in a healthy percentage of that traffic checking out other entries interlinked!
3. I wrote long, detailed, interesting and helpful posts. Most of my entries are well over a thousand words. Such detailed posts ensure that readers spend more time on your site. The logic is that, the more time spent on your site, the greater chances of clicking a linked post or suggested entry.
Always,
Terungwa
Hi Akaahan, that is a great percentage, congratulations. Interesting on #2, I started doing more last week with 3 posts vs 1-2 but then my mom took a turn for the worst and this week I could not even get on to write. #3 is another one that I’ve read 2 sides to – some bloggers say it helps and others say they have seen no difference. I wonder if it depends on the niche as well Akaahan? Thanks for your contribution to adding to this topic. It gives us all more to ponder. Have a great weekend!
Hey Lisa,
My bounce rate fluctuates. I agree with Ashley above about how some get the answer they are looking for then head off.
I completely agree with all of your points. You make it hard to add to the conversation by being so thorough. I appreciate it!
I come across many post where some agree and disagree with #3. IMO, why would you not want to open another website in a new window? It’s great that you are providing helpful resources etc. What if they plan to subscribe but click on the link first. You potential opened the door to being forgotten now. For me all external links are going to be opened in a new window!
Thanks for this Lisa!
Hi Steven, I wonder how that can change if they find what they are looking for and quickly take off. Maybe an offer in the post for them to check out? Or would that turn them away? Sometimes it turns me off if each post is trying to sell me something. Gives me something to think about Steven. You are welcome Steven and have yourself a great weekend. Mine is just starting here.
Hi Lisa
Bounce rate is a tricky one.
I read recently that the average bounce rate for a blog is actually between 70% and 90%.
Mine tends to be around the 70% mark and Chris Brogan shared with me a while ago that his is similar!
I wrote about “adjusted Bounce Rate” a while ago on my blog and am still thinking I might change to that.
I know Adrienne did and her statistics now make much more sense to her.
Adjusted Bounce Rate doesn’t just take into account whether someone lands on a page and doesn’t view any others.
It also takes into account the length of time they spend reading the post and/or whether they scroll down the page.
That’s probably more meaningful for a blog because many people who subscribe to your RSS feed will only read your latest article.
Similarly if people are searching for something specific on a search engine, they’re more than likely not going to click through to another page on your blog if they’ve found what they’re looking for.
Lots to ponder!
Hi Tim, yes, and I thought blogs would have a higher bounce rate than a retail website. Oh yes Kumar just mentioned about tweaking the Google analytics as well. It sure is a lot to ponder Tim but I believe it is also a ranking factor with both Google page rank, Domain Authority and Alexa. We can’t get away from it. Thanks for coming by Tim and have a great day there.
Hi Tim, yes, and I thought blogs would have a higher bounce rate than a retail website. Oh yes Kumar just mentioned about tweaking the Google analytics as well. It sure is a lot to ponder Tim but I believe it is also a ranking factor with both Google page rank, Domain Authority and Alexa. We can’t get away from it. Thanks for coming by Tim and have a great day there.
Great tips Lisa. Thank you for these awesome tips.
Some of the things you have mentioned here have helped me reduce my bounce rate. However, one thing I would say is, in spite of all these, your bounce rate may still be high because of the way Google Analytics calculates bounce rates (which probably Adrienne will talk more about anyday.
Anyways, I think it does make sense to tweak the Analytics tracking code to instruct it to calculate bounce rates the way we think it should and not the standard way. I did that I have seen much better bounce rates since.
Thank you and have a great day!
Regards,
Kumar
Hi Kumar, you are welcome. Ah yes, that would make sense too – I will have to check that tweaking out with the Google analytics. Thanks for that tip. Today is Thursday, maybe I will read about it today at Adrienne’s. Have a great day Kumar.
Hi Lisa,
Great post! It made me go check my bounce rate which I havent checked in at least 6 months! It was so high – around 65 -70% and I finally just stopped looking. But with your post I checked and the overall is 10.69%. Holy smoke! How’d that happen? I mean I know why, but I’m very, very, very surprised! and happy.
Thanks for writing this and making me check myself out! You’ve got lots of good info here. I personally didn’t know anything about internal linking either.
Great post. Thanks so much.
Barbara
Thank you Barbara. That’s a wonderful thing Barbara, did you do a lot of work on your website? Write longer posts? Did you do more internal links? Referring to past posts in your newer posts? You are welcome Barbara and I’d love to know what changes you made during that time frame.
Great stuff as always. I had been wanting to lower my bounce rate but had no clue where to begin. I am 77% overall and in the 30s to 60s for my top drivers.
What is a 404 page?
Hi Arlett, we need to get you a gravatar. The 404 page is your redirect page – if someone runs into a broken link it will pop up and say sorry the page you are looking for is not here and usually redirect them back to your home page and wherever you set it up. Have you seen yours?
If you’re using many external links, your bounce rate will be high. And, it is good to make external links open in new window to reduce bounce rate. But, unfortunately it might be treated like pop-ups. Especially in the Internet Explore.
In that case, I really don’t care about bounce rate. I’m just focusing on user satisfaction.
Hi Majharul, focusing on user satisfaction will help your bounce rate after all too. I’ve seen some posts that link out to 25+ with lists, etc. I guess if they don’t do it with every post they may be okay. I’ve done a few like them myself over the years. I try to limit most to 1-3 per post now. Thanks for your input and have a great day Majharul.
bounce rate is very important. it’s one of the biggest parts to decide the value of the website. i generally use inter linking of my blog post to reduce bounce rate of bogs and websites and it’s really very effective strategy.
thanks for the nice tips..
Thanks Gaurav, it is an important factor in SEO and having your website being found in the search engines. Many bloggers – mostly newer ones don’t seem to use internal linking. It is harder to do in the beginning with few posts but they could link to the other pages on the blog. Thanks for your input and have a great weekened.
Hi Lisa,
Good topic and very good advice. I will try to formulate the problems in the following way:
Everything started with having a niche. Don’t have a niche? You don’t have an identity. This means a high bounce rate.
Did you define your idea target audience? What is the ideal person you write and create content for?
You must create a kind of portrait and have that image of the idea person (the “buyer persona”) in your mind. Always.
Next you must identify the pains, frustrations, needs and wants of your target audience.
Then you will create content especially designed for that audience.
Finally, you must take your best content and place it somewhere on your blog in such a way so as everybody can see it.
This is what decreases the bounce rate. Then, of course, optimization and all the rest.
Now, I think your best content is your most powerful weapon. You must create the best content you can and find out the best method to present it on your blog. Usually, this is made with a plugin.
The first plugin I tested was nRelate. It worked well but I wanted to test at least one more. So I tried WordPress Popular Posts.
I placed both plugins on my blog and tested them for a while. The result was interesting and contrary to my beliefs.
While WordPress Popular post is nice and effective on the side bar, nRelate is more powerful on the whole. However, this was not the decisive factor. The most important reason that determined the final choice was the loading time of the site.
I made the comparison and finally decided for one of the plugins. Now my best and most popular content from my blog will be presented by one effective plugin. I am certain this only thing will significantly decrease the bounce rate.
Have a wonderful day
Hi Silviu, Excellent point about a niche and being focused, that can sure make a difference. Oh yes, the pains, frustrations – to help them, anytime you can help a reader with their problem, they will come back for more. I’ve noticed a difference too with the related post plugin. It gives readers more to read up on a topic. I sometimes change the posts with related posts if it points to a very old or weak post. I try to think what the reader will need next. Thanks for coming by Silviu, sorry it took so long to respond, been a rough week. I hope you have a great weekend.
Hi Lisa,
I learned about bounce rates when I read a post at Mayura’s place (I think it was). I haven’t checked my bounce rate this month but when I checked it in December it was about 50% too.
Thank you for sharing these suggestions on how we can lower our bounce rate. I have to agree with you on the pop-ups. I’m one of those who doesn’t care too much for them. I mean, I’ve read how you can use pop ups for newsletter sign ups but I would rather have them stay on my blog and if they like what they see I hope they’d sign up.
The one thing I would like to work on is adding links to my 404 page like you mentioned. Only, I hope you’ll do a post on how you did it to show us grasshoppers :).
Thanks for this great information! Happy Tuesday Lisa! Hope you’re having a great week!
Hi Corina, yes, he may have I believe. Let’s see if he reads this and responds. That is decent Corina. Now we can try to improve ours together around the same percentage. I may take you up on that one as I want to do that here. You are welcome – it’s been a challenging week between snowstorm and mom back in hospital. It can only get better from here, right? Have a wonderful Wednesday Corina!
I can’t wait! I know it’ll be a great one :)!
The weather is all over the news, I feel for ya’ll up there. I hope your mom is feeling better! I know how scary it can be when our mom is sick. But like they say what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
Have a great weekend Lisa! Thanks so much for participating this week!
Hi Corina, don’t sweat it too much, I believe blogs do have a higher bounce rate than other type of websites from all that I’ve read. Definately do more internal linking though. You can also update other pages like your about you page etc on the blog and make sure they link to other pages. That always helps too with SEO and bounce rate. I would think your search from home jobs links on the side would help too. Those looking would spend time there. You do have a lot of pages too – more than I realized, that should help you as well if they link to other pages on the website. You are welcome and thanks for having me, now to get over there. I have it open on my browser. Have a nice weekend too!
Hi Lisa,
Great post on the bounce rate. It’s interesting, I just had a look at mines and it’s around 30%. According to your guideline, it looks like I’m good to go!
Also, I am in agreement with #6. There’s nothing worse than hopping on someone’e site that is messy and cluttered. Thanks for an awesome post!
Hi Nate, thank you. That is good! Your posts are so informative and interesting. Nothing worse than landing on a cluttered blog or website. Especially ones with those crazy backgrounds or nasty popups. Thanks for coming by and have a great day there Nate.
Lisa,
Glad to see you don’t give the blind side to this important stat of the Internet and website in general.
Bounce rates are the clear indicator on what kind of quality your traffic is made of.
I’d rather have a lower amount of traffic with a low bounce rate over a high amount of traffic that wouldn’t care less about what you write.
I like your suggestions on helping others lower their “high” bounce rate if they have one.
Bottom line, your content has to kick ass in order to convert more of your traffic into potential subscribers which I’m pretty sure you know of that already.
Heck, I would recommend a bounce rate 10% or lower for the standard rate, but whatever your case may be, make sure to have that number lowered if too high.
Thanks for writing this action-packed article on Bounce Rates.
– Sam
Thank you Smauel, well I started with retail sites before blogging so that is why – had to learn how to make money with them. Bounce rate was critical. Wow 10% is hard to come by but from comments see that some have achieved it. Thanks for your input Samuel and you are welcome. Have yourself a great day and rest of the week ahead.
Hey Lisa,
My current bounce rate is a nice little 50%
I suppose this is because my blog is brand new (and almost all of the visitors are from people who I know…so, they are more likely to read and comment on the post).
I should be able to get a clearer picture over the next few weeks (I hope! I am trying to do this fast..I don’t want to spend too much time focusing on traffic generation).
404 page…ah, yes. I had a nice little idea (you know, the christmas decoration balls..I decided use it for 404 page…you know, break one of them and use it to represent the page :D).
It didn’t work out (Well, I broke the ball..but, I couldn’t get a good picture).
In the end, I ended up creating a weird one with Photoshop (I am going to try and change..right now, I am planning to create a mascot for my blog…so, work on the mascot..then use the mascot to represent 404 page in some way).
Hope it works out. Good luck on your 404 page!
Jeevan, that’s good and a great start! Yes, give it time and check again. I do like your idea on that 404 page. You should do a post about it when you are done with it. Thanks Jeevan and have a great day and rest of the week there.
Hi Lisa,
Nice post on bounce rate. I was surprised when I checked the overall bounce rate of my blog during 2013. It was 10.22% based on GA. I think number of posts, SEO and internal links give huge impact on our bounce rate.
Hi Okto, wow, that is very low, congrats! Do you think the larger number of posts = a lower bounce rate? If so how many do you have? Thanks Okto.
Hi Lisa,
Hmm…Never checked my bounce rates. As I read this post I went over to check and there is nothing but flat lines. Am I dead? lol.
Now you have gotten me curious and that’s a good thing. I have to go over and check to see if I have entered everything appropriately. Probably not, knowing me.
But I do have the understanding of bounce rates. No one will stay on a post if it is deceiving, looks like things are blinking all over the place. Have those pop ups where you have to figure out where the heck the x is to get rid of it, and so on.
Simplicity is the key. Just be straight forward, give good content, engage your readers, and voila! That’s my school of thought.
Thanks for making me aware of what I should be doing with my blog. I am so bad at that and you have given me inspiration today.
-Donna
Donna, I wonder if your analytics are set up right? No numbers with the bounce rate? Oh yes if things are blinking and can’t be closed with one try I’m off usually and quite frustrated. I agree with you on the simplicity. You are welcome Donna and let me know if you find out about your settings or need help. Have a good day Donna.
Hi Lisa,
I just checked into my analytics and saw that bounce rate has been between 45-55 for the past one month. I don’t know if that is something to cheer for or I need to improvise on somethings.
As for me, I would like to list out three most crucial things that can help to steer bounce rate in positive direction.
1. Internal Linking :- This is the easiest and the most profitable way to engage visitors on your site thus decreasing the bounce rate to a large extent. You can even use related posts to link to other useful pages on your blog.
2. Site Speed :- No one likes to keep waiting for a site to load. I would like to know if my blog keeps you waiting or not?
3. Simple Blog Design :- Yes you are right. I have seen headache giving themes and templates. Yours is pretty and user-friendly.
Thanks.
Regards,
Vineet
Vineet, that is a good rate especially for a blog. Those 3 things are critical for sure. I’ve noticed many bloggers not taking advantage of those internal links. Speed is something we must all work on from time to time and check. Thanks for compliment on my theme, been thinking about changing it and decided against it for now at least. I wonder if yours will go down in 30 days by implmenting more of the ways to decrease bounce rate. It will be interesting to see. Thanks for your input anad have a great day.
Hi Lisa,
By giving attention to your bounce rate you can judge if your visitors enjoying your website/blog or not. Higher bounce rate means that they’re not finding what they’re looking for or your website giving bad impressions to your visitors. If you’re writing useful content, then you can easily force your visitors to stay longer and surf other pages. I think you already mentioned some useful steps to improve the user experience and reduce the bounce rate.
Hi Aahna, yes, that is true. If the bounce rate is very high they may not be finding what they were looking for or not like the site, Unless it is related to Adsense as Enstine pointed out. Thanks for your input and have a great day.
I am sure that many bloggers(especially the newbies) don’t understand what a bounce rate is. Its good to have a post like this reveal what this is why bloggers should care. Looking out for lower numbers in this metric is a good sign to follow. The 13 things to reduce the bounce rate described here are very helpful.
In kingged.com, I have left the above comment where this post was syndicated and shared for Internet marketers.
Sunday – kingged.com contributor
Thank you Sunday and yes bounce rate is not an easy concept for any new blogger to grasp. I know it took me time to fully understand it. Thanks for coming by to comment and share Sunday, have a great day.
That’s surely a wonderful post Lisa and I like the tips on reducing bounce rate.
I have a problem with Adsense and point #3. You know Google does not give us the facility to set the target on Adsense links and not everyone will think to right-click and open in new tab or new window. That means the more clicks we attract on Adsense objects, the more traffic we send away and if that just happens on the entry page, it means higher bounce rate.
Hope in the nearest future, Google enables us to set the target on clicks
Thanks for the informative post Lisa and do have a wonderful week
Thank you Enstine. interesting tidbit on the Adsense, thanks for adding that here to any readers who may use Adsense on their blogs or websites. They can remain calm now. That would be nice if Google does update that to enable the setting. I hope you have a great rest of your week too Enstine. Nice to see you back here.
Hi Lisa,
Point 3 is key for me – Make External Links Open to New Window. I see so many sites not utilising this oh so simple feature.
My bounce rate is slightly over 50% – its my blog that drags it down. Organic visitors to my main site tend to stick around to view my portfolio and customer reviews.
Hi Mark, oh yes, I’ve noticed that too. Amazing isn’t it? I think from some of the comments I’ve seen and personal experiences that blogs may have a higher bounce rate. I will be working on mine here more aggressively in the coming month to see if that pans out or not. I may do a follow up. Thanks for coming by Mark and have a wonderful day.
I have another site that I really don’t do much with. It is kind of a set it and forget it thing. For some reason it always had 40-50% bounce rate range. I expected it to be much higher because I didn’t do much with it, and it wasn’t the highest quality.
My main site that I do put in a lot of work when I can is way higher than that. I haven’t checked for a while, but in the 70-80% range I am guessing. I think maybe because there are a lot of tutorial how to types of things there maybe people find and land on the page they are looking for, get the info they need and they leave if it works for them.
I used to see people talking about very low bounce rates, and wondered how they got them down so low.
Hi Ray, very interesting, thanks for sharing that. I found the same with the retail sites I used to do. There rates were lower than my blog here. Maybe you can experiment now with some of the 13 tips as I am doing myself here now. Give it a month or so and see if it has a big effect or not. I’d love to know. Have a great rest of the week Ray.
In my own view, in order to reduce bounce rate, it very is important to set up users expectations through the content. You do need to develop a better web design too, clear navigation, content must be easy to read and etcetera. I found this post shared on Kingged.com, the Internet marketing social site, and I “kingged” it and left this comment.
Hi Metz, thank you! Oh yes, no false advertising. A clear navigation is important too otherwise readers will get confused and leave to maybe never returning again. I will have to get bac kto Kingged soon. Thanks for the reminder Metz. Have a wonderful day too!
Hi Lisa – Mayura fixed all the problems on my blog. He also fixed my Google Analytics.
At one point I had a high bounce rate on one page because I discovered I had broken links. GA was very useful in pointing out that problem.
My average bounce rate is 5.40%. But I don’t get a lot of traffic. I have to be more diligent in using internal linking.
Great tips! Thanks.
Hi Lauren, isn’t Mayura amazing? I just had him do some work for me here too. Some things are just too technical and why spend so much time when you can hire someone – especially someone so good as him? Oh yes, you could update some old posts and add some internal links too Lauren as well as on pages. That’s a great bounce rate Lauren! I’m working on mine here now since I no longer do the retail sites (with the divorce and all.) Thanks for coming by and I’m so happy to hear how Mayura saved the day for you – he’s done that for me many times! Have a great day and get ready for more snow heading our way.
Great idea about updating old posts w/internal links. Yes, Mayura is the best! Tech stuff hurts my head.
Sorry you’re going through a rough time. Tweet anytime if you need to talk.
Snow is getting heavy here. I’m still at work. We’ll probably close early today.
Hi Lauren, yes, do try that out if you have not already Lauren. Mayura sure is the best. I’m with you, why spend hours when he could accomplish it in minutes? Thank you, I haven’t checked how much we got but everything is covered and I didn’t even hear the snow plow – must mean quite a few inches or feet out there. Stay warm Lauren!
{grunt grunt} I have never in 3 years checked my bounce rate! Egads gf! You are the queen of blogging. I think my Google Analytics are still set up on MGP. Guess I’ll put that on my honey do list to double check. I know you mentioned bounce rate with Stumbledupon so I really want to check that out too.
Thanks for a fabulously written post my friend. Gladly sharing the love!
Hi Bren, that was all the stuff I did on the retail sites almost daily. Lower bounce rate led to sales. Now to lower my bounce rate here. Oh yes, those analytics do wonders and help you to know what is working and what is not. Thanks and good luck with it, let me know how you make out. Love to know if your Stumble Upon rate is high or not.
Hi Lisa
If only I could get my bounce rate lower.
I guess having loads of new visitors and people from search really makes it go up. I also wonder about the bounce rate measurement given there is no second click, so google just says 100%. But you have no idea how long they stayed.
I tried to add categories, related posts, interesting links etc. But in the end only a certain percentage will ever be open to new content anyway. Some are just looking for an answer and then they are off!
thanks for your tips
ashley
Hi Ashley, I’m trying to as well. I hope after learning what I’ve learned in researching this topic it will make a difference. I was able to on the retail sites I did. It took a few months but it did work. Now my attention will be focused here. That is a good point – once they find what they are looking for they are off. I found people from organic search did stay longer as well as though that came from other blogs. It was the social sites that drove up my bounce rate here. Makes you think right? Thanks for coming by Ashley and have a great day.
Really helpful article. Thanks so much. I just have a question – why should internal links open in the same window? Any particular reason for that?
Thank you Renuka. It keeps your readers engaged on your site when your internal links open in the same window. (They are less likely to get confused and navigate away.) It would help keep your bounce rate down and help your overall SEO efforts. Welcome to Inspire to Thrive and thanks for visiting Renuka. Great question too!
My blogs bounce rate is too high since when I start the PPC campaign. I just curious about this. Does high bounce rate is harm to my site. Google will punish my site for this??
Hi IDev, yes it can hurt your site and if it is high for a long time Google could make it much harder for your website to be found. Check your GOogle analytics and webmaster tools to see what is causing the high bounce rate and see what you can do to adjust it. Good luck!
Hey Lisa, I forget to change but my real Name is Bhavesh. Thanks for your valuable response. Now I check Google Analytic and WEb master tool every day instead of a week.
Thanks for letting me know Bhavesh. Maybe you should also use your real photo? I found it really helps!
Hi Lisa,
That was a very well-explained post about bounce rate.
I’m pretty happy with mine at nearly 25-30 now, as compared to 50-60 that was there earlier…somethings surely working. And you’d also be surprised to know that this was the case or reading when I was putting up posts once a week, as compared to the twice a week now. So, that might be a reason too somewhere. Even internal linking should be done within limits, just as you mentioned, or it tends to take away people, rather than getting them in. Great tips shared indeed.
Thanks for sharing. Have a nice week ahead,
Thank you Harleena, that’s a great rate you have! So you think posting 2x per week vs 1x made a difference? Interesting – I have not come across that in my research. I did three this week and will be interested to see if there is any impact on it. Oh yes, too many links of any kind in a post would take people away, good point indeed. You are welcome and have yourself a great week too Harleena. BTW – loved your post on Tim’s blog today!