Bounce rate numbers can be such an intimidating metric to watch – especially when the numbers are increasing. I bet I know that feeling!

One of the common concepts about the bounce rate is that a low rate is good while a high rate is bad. Well, how true is that?

In this post, I’m going to show you what bounce rate is, how important it can be, and tips on how you can improve it. That way, you can be a step above your competitors with time.

Let’s start with the definition.

What is a Bounce Rate?

According to Google, Bounce Rate is the percentage of bounced visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page).

Usually, a “bounce” occurs when a user leaves your site without interacting further with other pages on your site.

The numbers you see on Google Analytics only records the visitors who interacted with your site. Meaning, if they checked out other pages of your site or not.

So, why is the bounce rate so important?

Why is this so important?

According to SEMrush, the bounce rate is the 4^th most important ranking factor on search engine result pages (SERPs).

However, according to the Search Engine Journal, Google does not use the bounce rate in its algorithm metrics.

Well, both of them can be correct. I’ll show you why.

While Google’s algorithm may not directly rely so much on the bounce rate, it’s indirectly a significant factor.

For instance, if a user clicks on your page on SERPs and doesn’t interact with other pages of your site, that could signal to Google that your site isn’t useful to that unique search keyword.

In other words, your site doesn’t match the user intent. As a result, you could lose ranking. But on the flip side, a lower bounce rate can help you identify if your marketing strategy is just good enough or not.

Your focus is to understand your target audience and be able to interpret your bounce rate so that you can use it to your advantage.

What is a Good Bounce Rate?

Just as you know, every website and industry vary. So, many different factors will determine what a “good” bounce rate is.

For instance, Brafton found that the average bounce rate is 58.18%. However, their research shows that bounce rates are higher for B2B businesses than B2C businesses.

If you’re still unsure about what bounce rate is good for your kind of website, a tool like Google Analytics may be of help.

This tool helps you get a quick overview of the average bounce rate in your industry. This means it takes into consideration your competitors as well.

Just go to the admin bar in the Google Analytics tool, click on “Account Settings” and set up benchmarking.

Then, navigate to your behaviour reports. Click on “Site Content” and then “Landing Pages.”

The average bounce rates will be there on your screen!

So, depending on your industry, you should target the bounce rates of the #1 site in your niche.

Now, let’s look at how you can improve your bounce rates.

3 Ways to Improve Your Bounce Rates

It’s important to note that there’s no quick-fix or magic method to lowering your bounce rate.

However, here are three ways to push bounce rates metric down and increase engagement on your site:

1. leveraging the power of meaningful calls to actions (CTAs)

The trick here is introducing your highest CTR headline as a call to action for suggested reading. Your aim is to increase the click-through rate to the next page.

Adding them at the end of a post won’t make much impact. Instead, put them somewhere in the middle – for better visibility.

2. Optimize Page Speed

While this isn’t a direct trick to improving the bounce rate, one of the main reasons a user might leave your site is slow loading time.

According to a survey by Pingdom, a page’s load time directly impacts the bounce rate.

Well, the simple logic is no one wants to wait for longer page speed. They in return, just leave your site and this adds up to an increased bounce rate.

3. Create Better, More Engaging Content

You can never go wrong with this.

I don’t mean to say you’re not creating valuable content. It’s only a call on you to check your content strategy and see if it keeps users off your site.

Maybe you need to improve your headlines, meta tags, and descriptions to make your pages more scannable and clickable.

Perhaps you need to add more images to increase engagement with visuals at every scroll depth.

Finally, don’t waste their time. Get to the point very quickly and be precise. Don’t forget, the longer they stay on your site, the higher the chance of your visitors seeing another link they might be interested in and click on it.

What strategies are you currently using to lower the bounce rate?