Decreasing Bounce Rates to Improve Consumer Experience

In regard to web analytics, a bounce is considered a single-page session on your site, or the action of a user visiting one page of your website and closing their browser (Google, n.d.). This is the opposite of what most marketers and business owners want, and by looking at the overall bounce rate of your website, you can almost exactly pinpoint the reason your website visitors are "bouncing." 

"Bounce rate is a metric that measures the percentage of people who land on your website and do completely nothing on the page they entered, " van den Berg (2017) writes. "So, they don't click on a menu item, a 'read more' link or any other internal links on the page." 

To get technical, the bounce rate is the rate of single-page sessions (or the total number of users that viewed a single page and nothing more) divided by the total number of sessions to your website (Google, n.d.). 

If a page on your website has a high bounce rate, that doesn't entirely mean it's a bad thing. Some pages are intended only to inform, so a high bounce rate on your about or FAQ pages, for example, would make sense. Your users entered the site looking for that piece of information and left. However, if your company's goal is to turn those users into newsletter subscribers, the bounce rate is a good inclination that you need to make some adjustments to encourage your page viewers to meet your goal. In this scenario, adding a way for users to sign up for the newsletter on that page may help (van den Berg, 2017). 

As Google Analytics (2016) described in its beginner training series, if there's a high bounce rate among a group of users that are entering your site from a specific platform, like YouTube, for example, they probably aren't easily finding the information they are searching for. Making adjustments to the landing page they see based on information this audience may be looking for will probably help decrease the bounce rate. You could also change the landing page they see to present information specific to this audience. 

For example, if people watching your YouTube videos that highlight your company's products and are directed to your home page but can't easily find your shop to purchase the product, they'll most likely bounce. Instead, you could direct them straight to your online store. This would also be beneficial if one of your company's goals is to increase sales. 

Bounce rates will tell you the experience your consumers have with your online brand and can tell you how to improve your marketing efforts for specific audiences and goals. If your website visitors are landing on a page where it's not clear how to navigate to the information they are looking for or are being met with slow load times, they won't want to stick around to figure it out. Analyzing these bounce rates and making adjustments to your content based on the rates will not only improve your customer's experience with your brand but also help your company meet its marketing goals. 

References 

Google Analytics. (2016, April 15). Google Analytics for Beginners 3.3: Behavior Reports. Retrieved 

    October 19, 2020, from https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/course/6/unit/3/lesson3

Google. (n.d.). Bounce rate - Analytics Help. Retrieved October 19, 2020, from                

    https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1009409?hl=en

Reed College of Media. (2020). Week 1 Lesson: Intro to Web Analytics and the Basics of Web Analytics. 

    Retrieved October 19, 2020, from    

    https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/displayLearningUnit?

    course_id=_150868_1&content_id=_7384399_1&framesetWrapped=true

Van den Berg, A. (2017, July 21). Understanding bounce rate in Google Analytics - Yoast. Retrieved '   

    October 19, 2020, from https://yoast.com/understanding-bounce-rate-google-analytics/