Website Bounce Rate

The Website Bounce Rate represents the percentage of guests that bounce off your site. The “bounce” occurs when a visitor enters your website and then leaves, rather than interacting with it further.

Website bounce rate formula - what is website bounce rate?

Is High Website Bounce Rate a Bad Thing?

Most likely, if your web page serves as a gateway to other information. You would want to interest your visitors and lure them deeper into the website. Single-paged sites or blogs can count as an exception to this rule.

You can find your Website Bounce Rate inside Google Analytics. Choose Audience, then Overview in the control panel and you will be provided with statistics on your website.

Wesbite bounce rate example from Google Analytics

What's the Average Website Bounce Rate?

According to RocketFuel research, most websites see bounce rates range from 26% to 70%.

If your bounce rate is under or over these numbers, you should have some concerns. Lower than 26% can mean that something is wrong with your analytical tools. A bounce rate of over 70% can be a sign of a problem with your analytics or that your web page doesn’t get enough interest from its target audience. In this case, you might consider changing the design or content.

Note that some business models are just fine working with these numbers. For example, if you are a media company and your website heavily relies on social and search for traffic.

Though these numbers can serve as a reference point, you should set your own benchmark. To do that, consider the goals your website content pursues. This way, you will know what needs improvement. If your goal is to get visitors into a conversation with a chatbot in order to engage with them, then work on making a visitor’s journey to it completely natural.

Summary

The Website Bounce Rate is an indicator of your website’s effectiveness in piquing its visitors’ interest. An interpretation of a Bounce Rate should be based on the format and purpose of your website. And having a high Bounce Rate doesn’t necessarily mean underperformance.