What is a "Bounce Rate?"

What is a Bounce Rate? And what does it tell me?

Those of you who use web statistics or analytics software to measure the traffic to your site may be familiar with the term “bounce rate.” But, you may not know what it means or how important it can be.

The bounce rate measures the percentage of site visitors who do not go beyond the first page that they landed on when they came to your site. In other words, it measures, as a percentage of all visitors, the number that “bounce” away from your site before visiting additional pages of your site.

Obviously, the lower your bounce rate, the better.
Though not always the case, the home page usually is the most popular “entry page” of a website. If most of your visitors enter through your home page, and your bounce rate is high, you need to consider changes to that page.

What is considered “high” for a bounce rate? It is probably almost impossible to get a bounce rate below 20%. If your bounce rate is 50% or above, I would look at making changes.

For some ideas on home page improvements, see this article about improving your web site’s home page.