Bounce Rated with Case Study

Bounce Rate

    Opposite of conversion rates are bounce rates. “A bounce is a single-page session on your site. In Analytics, a bounce is calculated specifically as a session that triggers only a single request to the Analytics server, such as when a user opens a single page on your site and then exits without triggering any other requests to the Analytics server during that session,” Google Analytics, n.d.). Therefore, a bounce rate is calculated as single-page visits (bounces) divided by entry pages, (Reed College of Media, 2021). In other words, “bounce rate is the percentage of single-page sessions (i.e. sessions in which the person left your site from the entrance page without interacting with the page),” (Koks, 2015).

 

    According to Google Analytics, bounce rate isn’t always a negative metric. If a business’s website depends on visitors viewing more than one page, then a high bounce rate would indicate that improvements or maintenance will need to be done to the website to lower the bounce rate. However, if there is a single-page website, like this blog, then a high bounce rate is considered normal since only a single-page session is expected, (Google Analytics, n.d.).

 


Case study: Reducing Website Bounce Rates

    Matthew O’Reilly, a UX and Interface Designer, documents his findings with bounce rates while working with a local dentist. He states, “As a rule of thumb, a bounce rate in the range of 26 to 40 percent is excellent. Forty-one to 55 percent is roughly average. Fifty-six to 70 percent is higher than average but may not be cause for alarm depending on the website,” (2017). O’Reilly noticed the dentist was losing visitors and potential conversions due to high bounce rates. Another problem was that the website was receiving a lot of mobile traffic, but the current site was not optimized for mobile use.

 

    O’Reilly set goals and implemented a new design and went live with the dentist’s new website on October 12, 2016. Since then, he states there have been noticeable improvements in user interaction and behavior, click through rate, bounce rates, site speed, and conversion rates. The dentist’s website showed a 25.52 percent decrease in bounce rate from all users – down from 64.99 percent. Similarly, the bounce rate for mobile users was also decreased by 27.82 percent from 65.01 percent, (O’Reilly, 2017). See the analytics below.


Bounce rates for all users, (O’Reilly, 2017).


Bounce rates for mobile traffic, (O’Reilly, 2017).

 


How Bounce Rates are Used to Diagnose Issues

    Similar to improving conversion rates, in order to decrease bounce rates, a website needs to be optimized for mobile, be user friendly, and aesthetically pleasing. High bounce rates can indicate issues with specific pages within a website. It can indicate poor user interface on those pages. “If a particular channel has a high bounce rate, take a look at your marketing efforts for that channel: for example, if users coming via display are bouncing, make sure your ads are relevant to your site content,” (Google Analytics). This metric is very telling of potential website issues for businesses and should not be ignored. After all, low bounce rates have a chance to increase conversion rates.

 

 

 

 

 

References

Google Analytics. (n.d.). Bounce Rate. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1009409?hl=en

 

Koks, P. (2015, January 27). Three Learnings from My Adjusted Bounce Rate Case Study. Retrieved from https://online-metrics.com/bounce-rate-case-study/

 

O’Reilly, M. (2017, June 15). Case Study: Reducing Website Bounce Rates. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@mattheworeilly/case-study-reducing-website-bounce-rates-7d81a904ec4d

 

Reed College of Media. (2021). Week 1 Lesson: Introduction to Web Analytics, Basics of Web Analytics and Tool Introduction and Selection [Blackboard]. Retrieved from https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/displayLearningUnit?course_id=_159257_1&content_id=_8041502_1&framesetWrapped=true

 

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