What is a Bounce Rate on Google Analytics in 3 Clear Parts
What is a Bounce Rate on Google Analytics is important to know since it is one of the common pieces of data that Google Analytics tracks. On average, eCommerce websites have bounce rates around 10% – 40% while websites that are pure content have much higher bounce rates. Bounce rates are a way to analyze how effective a website is in bringing in leads and keeping them on the site. There are three parts of going through what is a bounce rate on Google Analytics:
- What is a Bounce Rate?
- Why Bounce Rates Matter.
- How to find your Bounce Rate on Google Analytics.
What is a Bounce Rate on Google Analytics
Understanding what bounce rate on Google Analytics is requires knowing what a bounce rate is, why it matters, and where to find your bounce rate.
What is a Bounce Rate?
A ‘bounce’ in website analytics is when a user goes to one page on a website and then leaves the site. A bounce rate is how often users only go to one page on a site per session (instance that they went to that site). Different kinds of websites tend to have different bounce rates. Content websites have an average bounce rate around 50% since so many users only go to one piece of content (usually information to answer one question).
Why Bounce Rates Matter
Most websites want to keep users on their site as long as possible (there are exceptions like one page websites or sister websites that lead users to the main website), so bounce rates tell them if the users they get on their site are going through their website or just visiting one page. Reasons that users click off a page include:
- User disliked the aesthetic design.
- User found what they were looking for on the one page.
- Layout is unusual and/or confusing.
- Website was not what the user thought it was.
- User had an urgent (personal) reason to leave the site (life happens).
How to Find Your Bounce Rate on Google’s site for Analytics
You can find your bounce rate by going to your Google Analytics home page – also called ‘All Website Data’. Look below ‘Google Analytics Home’. There will be four items that have a header and a number. The third item will be your bounce rate.
Keep in mind that Google Analytics is shifting to Google Analytics 4 which will be the only Google Analytics running data after July 1st, 2023. Google Analytics 4 does not and will not track Bounce rates for websites. The main reason for this is that websites with only one page are automatically ranked lower due to what appears to be a terrible bounce rate; thus, the new analytics version will be more friendly to one-page websites.
How to Get a Good Bounce Rate on Google Analytics
Landing Page
The first part of how to get a good bounce rate on Google Analytics is to have an alluring and representative landing page. A landing page is always the first page a user sees when they go to a website and is focused on advertising to the site’s audience while a homepage informs the user what the site is for and helps them navigate the site. A good landing page shows off a brand’s best side and product or service.
Effective landing pages lead users to great deals or top products or services. These pages are designed carefully; their design matches the rest of the website while having critical marketing elements that lead users down a sales funnel. These pages are easy to read and easy to move from to get to the rest of the website as well.
Appealing Aesthetic Design
The second element of how to get a good bounce rate is making the aesthetics appealing to users. 75% of users judge a brand’s credibility based on their website’s design. Design your landing page based on your site’s values and purpose. Keep it as minimalist as you can. Minimalism in websites causes users to find key things easier and creates a more relaxed and comfortable feeling for users.
Use visuals! Most people are visual learners so they like to have visual cues that indicate what to look at or where to go. Do this by reinforcing topics or ideas with images, infographics, and logos. This includes cartoons, graphics, and photographs (yes, stock images too). Since most people are visual learners, use beautiful yet relevant images to reinforce ideas of text content.
Make sure there is good contrast between colors of images, fonts, and backgrounds, and keep in mind the color-blind when choosing colors (look up common types of color blindness for this). The best colors for design of a website depend on what the website is for, who will be using it, and what the tone of the site and the owners want and like. Above all make sure the colors chosen are attractive to users and not too overwhelming or too boring to deter users from continuing on the website.
Efficient Navigation
The next element of how to get a good bounce rate on Google Analytics is having a good layout. Whether we’re talking about the layout of a page or the entire site, a layout is the path a user travels to find what they are looking for (most of the time a user is on a site for a specific purpose rather than just curiously exploring).
Find the items or actions that users most want to find or complete (possibly by using a red route matrix) and make sure that it is easy and clear for your users to find and complete them. Users that can’t find what they are looking for or a lead to it will click off the website.
Keep 3-5 similar elements and items together. Make sure that the way you organize/categorize elements is logical and easy to pick up on. This helps with the feeling of unison in the design and gives a sense of what to expect that helps users find things easily. You may want to make an organization graph of your method and elements to make sure everything is easy to find and the method is intuitive to users. Also, use proper information architecture organization to make details easier to find.
Be consistent with common placements of common UI elements. There are user interface (UI) elements that have widely accepted and expected placements and setups in websites and apps. For example, most websites that have profiles have the login/logout on the top left of the site, and most sites have their logo and/or name on the top left of the site. Since this means that users have known expectations about common UI elements, this is helpful for navigation. Set up websites using common placements for elements and users will find them quicker and more naturally. You won’t have to guide them as much and users won’t get frustrated with your layout and leave your site.
Keep things Interesting
As a bonus idea to how to get a good bounce rate on Google Analytics, try to keep users curious about your website by doing or showing things in a way to keep things interesting. This can include:
- Using fun colors or graphics to keep users intrigued.
- Adding humor to your text or graphics.
- Using unusual button designs.
- Using atypical fonts where appropriate.
- Make things move with animations (users like visual feedback to their clicks).
Summary
A ‘bounce’ in website analytics is when a user goes to one page on a website and then leaves the site. A bounce rate is how often users only go to one page on a site per session. Bounce rates are a way to analyze how effective a website is in bringing in leads and keeping them on the site. There are three parts of going through what is a bounce rate on Google Analytics:
- What is a Bounce Rate?
- Why You Should Care about Bounce Rates.
- How to find your Bounce Rate on Google Analytics.
