A well used metric for measuring a web site, blog, or other site performance is the measure of the bounce rate – if you use Google Analytics you will find this metric measured as a percentage. “Bounce Rate” in general terms is the measure of visitors to your site that leave after viewing a single page so is also known as “Exit Rate” – a low figure for a bounce rate means a large number of visitors are digging deeper into your site from the visiting page.

Often, a user may reach a web page via a search engine or from a referral from another site – in which case the brief description from the referring site will provide some indication of what the resultant content may be. If the content doesn’t match expectations then the visitor may well leave the site in pursuit of the information they are seeking.

Examples

Here are some examples of links that may lead to high and low bounce rates :

Firstly, how to produce a high bounce rate for a referral. Take this description “learn more about Google Chrome“, (don’t forget to come back after you have visit this link!). After visiting this link you may have come to the realisation that this link isn’t actually a description of Google Chrome and it may have been more relevant to describe it as “initial impressions of Google Chrome” instead. As the description leading to the referral wasn’t matching expectations it will probably lead to a high bounce rate (the visitor realises the content isn’t quite as described so leaves the site).

For a lower bounce rate we must meet visitor expectations, take this link: 42 things about Web 2.0 in 2008, part 1 of 3 – for visitors who are expecting to learn more about Web 2.0 they will find this link meets their expectations (hopefully). A useful thing about this link is that the article is split into three, in this instance purely because of the large size of the article. This may lead to further click through which would go on to improve the bounce rates of other posts. Having too many click through points for an article may be off putting so it is important to get the balance right.

Considerations

The trade-off in some environments is that getting a lower bounce rate may also lead to fewer visitors as the link is now more specific about what it leads to (though this may not always be the case) – this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as meeting visitor expectations is what’s really important.

Some sites may have an inherently high bounce rate nature, for example a site that offers hints and tips may often be reached when searching for the answer to a particular problem or query – when that solution is found the visitor will most likely leave the site thus contributing to a high bounce rate. In this scenario, using the bounce rate metric is not particularly relevant and in comparison possibly a visitor trending or keyword trend metric may be more suitable.

Conversely, an ongoing dialogue or discussion should typically lend itself to a low bounce rate – as long as the entry point to the discussion is in the right place. If a visitor reaches, via a search or referral, the discussion half-way through they may need to find the starting point by leaving the entry page which would be undesirable.

Summary

The point is to decide what you want your site to be before you start looking at the metrics, ask some simple questions:

• Are link descriptions clearly describing the resulting content?
• Is your content sticking to the point – “as advertised” ?
• Is content logically organised to encourage click through?
• Don’t overdo click through or you may put visitors off
• Are your “entry” points in the right place?

Further Reading

Wikipedia: Bounce Rate

Google: What does Bounce Rate mean?

Jakob Nielsen: Reduce Bounce Rates: Fight for the Second Click

Dosh Dosh: How to Analyze and Improve the ‘Bounce Rate’ for Your Website

Rich Page: Revealed: When Bounce Rate Sucks

Multimedia

Google Analytics video

Interesting Slide Share about Search metrics including “bounce rate”