Complete internet marketing analysis will include bounce rates.
As a 14 year old inbound marketing agency, we provide comprehensive evaluations and report all findings. As part of this complete reporting, we always answer the question, what does bounce rate mean. In fact, if you are partnered with an inbound marketing agency or not, determining what your bounce rate is must be displayed in your reporting.
What does bounce rate mean? Using Google Analytics definition and terminology, a bounce rate is a "one page, zero action web page visit".
What does bounce rate mean in more understandable terms? When a visitor arrives at your website, on any page (home page or landing page) but then has absolutely zero action from that point, we can consider that particular visitor a bounce. The new visitor came into a page page but then, before any other action was taken, they bounced out of the page and website.
It is important that when reviewing all reports, we always answer the question, what does bounce rate mean and, how do I lower my bounce rate. This is a very easy to access and useful key performance indicator (KPI). Google analytics and most other metrics evaluation applications include this KPI. If you do use an inbound marketing agency, make sure this metric is included in their reporting.
If your primary goal is to increase and maximize revenue, you will want to lower your bounce rates. Bounced visitors really have no value to your business. With this in mind, the question, what does bounce rate mean, is a very easy metric to measure and understand. In fact, most internet marketing professionals that focus on web analytics just love to look at and interpret bounce rates. It is such a simple metric that can tell so much about a website's performance. Bounce rates can isolate design weakness, formatting weakness, content weakness and SEO or other optimization weakness.
What does bounce rate mean? There are many varying calculations for determining your bounce rate. Below is the method used by Google Analytics to determine a bounce rate.
Page X Bounce Rate (percentage) = number of single page visits with zero action/number of entry page visits
After you ask the question what does bounce rate mean, you need to ask the question, what is my bounce rate. Your bounce rate is a weighted average of all your page bounce rates and is displayed in many different places when using Google Analytics.
From a content creation point of view, a high bounce rate may signify poor engagement. Not only is content development one of the single most important aspects of successful inbound marketing but you have the opportunity to at least partially evaluate how well you create content by watching the average bounce rate. For example, after you create a specific landing page and let it have time to develop data, you may see a high bounce rate. This may be caused by content that is not compelling enough. If the visitor finds your content boring, repetitive or lacks any value, they will most likely bounce, or leave the website right away. Most of your website visitors will not engage with your web page and the content you created if there is no value. This is a skill that needs to be developed and improved over time if you want to lower your bounce rate and produce a lower bounce rate, more engagements and more leads.
What does bounce rate mean? Now that you have a better understanding of what a bounce rate represents, you might ask, what constitutes a high bounce rate? Below is an illustration and explanation provided by Brian Clifton in his book entitled "Advanced Web Metrics With Google Analytics".
A red light is 50% or above and needs your attention
A yellow light is a bounce rate between 25% & 50%
A green light or great bounce rate is 25% or less
Virtual Support Systems is an inbound marketing agency that helps small business create, develop, manage, analyze and report all inbound marketing strategies. If you would like to have a a discussion, a Q&A session or even arrange a partnership with an inbound marketing agency, we encourage you to reach out and connect with us. We are always happy to help small business create a powerful inbound marketing plan.
To demonstrate our skills, we are offering you this free eBook explaining even more about website analysis. We know you will find this information extremely valuable.
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