What is bounce rate?

The bounce rate tells a lot about the quality of the web pages within your site. The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who land on a web page and then leave without taking any action. It is a percentage that Google values highly. After all, if visitors leave the webpage quickly and do not take any action, this could mean that the information found is not relevant or of sufficient quality. This can influence the quality score of your site and therefore also improve or decrease the findability of your website. But what exactly is bounce rate? How can you improve this percentage and what exactly does it say about the quality of the information you provide? 

Definition bounce rate 

But what exactly is bounce rate? The bounce rate is easy to explain using the following example:

A visitor comes to your web page via the search results. He looks around and soon discovers that it is not the information he was looking for. Maybe it lacks relevance or a professional look and feel. Without taking any action, he leaves the webpage again and clicks on to another site. In other words, he bounces from one website to another until he finds what he is looking for. 

It is generally thought that a very high bounce rate indicates that the web page is not good. That it is not of sufficient quality. But that is not necessarily the case. There is also a chance that the web page ranks unnecessarily high on search results that are less relevant to the content of that particular page. That is why it is so important for Google to keep an eye on the bounce rate. In this way, it allows you to score less high on irrelevant search results. That doesn't have to be a problem, as long as you keep scoring on relevant searches. 

How is the bounce rate translated into figures? 

There are several online programs that allow you to easily determine the bounce rate. Then you get to see a percentage. Of course, it is important that you know how to read this percentage. What do the percentages mean? 

The ultimate goal is to get the lowest possible bounce rate. A bounce rate between 26 and 44 percent is extremely good. You can't expect the bounce rate to be lower than 26 percent. Not every visitor will stay on your website. That's a fact and you can't do much about it. Only from a percentage of 56 percent onwards, it is important to find out the reason. 

But even with a high percentage, there is no need to worry. There may be several reasons why the bounce rate is high. For example, perhaps the web page does not invite further interaction and is almost always clicked back. Not because the information is not relevant or qualitative, but simply because it is obvious. You can see this in the case of a news item or a blog, for example. The bounce rate should not be compared with the exit rate.