You work hard to create the most perfect and engaging website, but all your traffic seems to do is bounce. The assumed high bounce rate could be to blame for this.

In the following chapters, we’ll explain bounce rate and its importance. We will also include steps to increase visitors’ stay and reduce the bounce rate in your traffic.

Moreover, we will explain where you can look for bounce rate in Google Analytics 4’s new GW4 space. Let’s ensure these visitors stay engaged and experience everything your website offers!

What is Bounce Rate?

A bounce is when a person visits the site, loads a single page, and leaves it. The term can be specifically defined within Google Analytics as a visit made by a person necessarily invoking only one request to the system. This is more or less the case; they probably looked at one page and did not interact with anything else or click around before exiting.

A bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who land and visit only a single page without interacting with the rest of the site. These impermanent interpersonal communications are sessions of zero seconds, as nothing more happens for Google Analytics to record.

Bounce rate is a key metric for understanding your website’s effectiveness, and here’s why:

• Conversions: High bounce rates may mean that certain opportunities to identify yourself to the audience have been missed. If people bounce off the website immediately after viewing one page, they are not becoming clients, subscribers, or purchasers. Thus, with a low bounce rate, the focus is on improving conversions and getting higher-value traffic on the website.
• Search Engine Love (Maybe): Though its effect is still up for discussion, certain surveys estimate that Google and other search engines might prefer websites with comparatively low bounce rates. This means that bounce rate is probably an SEM ranking factor, and consequently, improved bounce rate can positively affect your SEM rating.
• Website Health Check: It is common practice to keep a low bounce rate since it can flag certain problems with your website. It might suggest that some paths confuse visitors, perceived navigational issues, or unclear calls to action. Making your site more appealing and valuable for the audience helps you recognize the flaws and regain control.

Is a high bounce rate something you need to worry about? Not always!

Bounce rate is particularly important when your website depends on visitors perusing or navigating several pages. For example, suppose you are a news website with different articles or an eCommerce platform with different product categories. If people leave the site when they enter your homepage, it is a sign that you are not fulfilling their expectations.

As a result, low appreciation of bounce rates is attracted to its usability when used for one-page websites. This is especially true with blog articles with individual self-sustaining posts or any landing page containing a specific call to action. In such situations, a lot of bouncing merely means that visitors have what they were looking for and are gone.

What is a Good Bounce Rate?

You may start wondering what a good bounce rate is, which is a good question. Here’s a baseline to start:

• 26-40% is optimal
• 40-70% is average
• 70-90% is poor
• 90%+ is very poor
• 80%+ is very bad

Yes, a lower bounce rate, below 20%, should be a cause for celebration. This may be caused by a coding mistake, such as having two or more analytics scripts, wrong event setup, or any third-party application, such as live chat.

Even for the above parameters, the bounce rate can be context-dependent, including industry, content type, or devices. As outlined above, bounce rate patterns are the leading indicator of why visitors bounce and, most importantly, what to do about it.

Average Bounce Rate by Industry & Website Type

Take a look at the chart below to see an average bounce rate by industry:

Retail and eCommerce sites reflect the lowest bounce rate since such a site can feature thousands of web pages on average. Most visitors will go to one page and then notice another product they would like to look at and go to another page. Or they will buy that particular product, which will lead them to the checkout section of that product. It’s easy to see how one gets from one segment of the proposed visit to the next segment proposed for visitation.

While homepages, corporate sites, and product or service sites have comparatively lower bounce rates, landing pages, dictionaries, portals, and blogs have much higher bounce rates. However, all such websites are not barren or free of conversion. What this translates to is that they are items used in a way typically covered in a single page.

If a person is browsing the web looking for a definition of a word, that person will leave the site immediately after he/she finds the definition they were sear Portal websites, by definition, provide links to other sites; visitors to these sites will probably only be there for one session at the most. Landing web pages are perhaps designed to have no other than the main navigation links or internal links so that the visitor is not distracted from the single conversion event.

Average bounce rate distribution by channel

Next, let’s look at the average bounce rate by channel or traffic source:

As you can see in the above graph, display and social are leading the list by having the highest bounce rates. This is because the audiences visiting such channels are often expected to Click on a banner ad or a social media link and are then complete a few seconds later to return to their originally intended activity.

As for the specific channels, website, social, and search have the highest bounce rates, while referral and email generally have the lowest. The people likely to be used by a link from a like website should already be interested in whatever your site offers. Of all the forms of media, consumers are loyal to your business, and consumers who subscribe to your emails are even more loyal since they chose to be on your list. Considering how to decrease the bounce rate on your site, it’s reasonable to stop on channels that attract more users.

Average Bounce Rate with regards to the device

Last but not least, another criterion that may cause a bounce rate is the device with which the website is being viewed. Of course, you don’t have any specific control over your visitors’ devices, but that information will only help you get a better bounce rate.

Mobile users indeed have a higher bounce rate in every field of trade, as depicted in the graph below. This makes sense since people use the technology while in line waiting for a bus, and indeed, anything that could distract and move on at any one time.

Even though your bounce rate is high, it might be normal if you receive a lot of mobile traffic compared to sites that are visited mostly through desktop devices. This is just a useful tip to remember while striving to effect a decrease in bounce rates.

So, there is no black-and-white approach to defining a good bounce rate. While comparing your bounce rate with other sites may be useful and fun, the more valuable information to keep track of is the change in your bounce rate over time.

Always remember that if you maintain a blog or a website with rich content, your bounce rate will always be higher than that of the site developed for eCommerce business. That’s okay! That clearly explains why bounce rate is not the true picture or measure of how well your site is performing or converting, and most of all, you do not have to obsess over it.

How to Find Bounce Rate on Google Analytics (GA4)

Instead of interpreting bounce rate as an indication of failure, GA4 forms a new understanding of engagement. It is concerned with the simple page activity and multiple other factors.

A session in GA4 is considered engaged if it:

1. It takes more than 10 seconds to take up the action.
2. Triggers a conversion event,
3. Refers to at least two pages or screens.

Compared to the metric gauge in earlier versions of Analytics, the bounce rate in GA4 is directly equal to the engagement rate. This means the GA4 bounce rate is lower when it forms, indicating that more sessions have engaged with the page.

Such an approach also offers broader insights into how users engage with the site, thus embracing the ‘Addressable’ concept more. It also recognizes that coming from a link is more than merely going to another page.

Here’s how to find the bounce rate on  Google Analytics 4 (GA4):

Step 1: Go to the Engagement » Pages and screens on the left sidebar.

Step 2: If you don’t have one yet, click the pencil icon at the upper right part of your screen to create one. Once you’ve done so, a sidebar will appear.

Step 3: Metrics are the properties of qualitative and quantitative data that determine an object’s position within the class of similar objects it belongs to. Thus, they are defined by the ability to create a correspondence between object and data or between measurement and object.

Step 4: Using the preceding scrollbar, select the Add metric drop-down option at the bottom and type “bounce” to get the Bounce rate.

Step 5: After choosing it from the supported list, the Bounce rate will appear under Metrics. Click Apply.

Step 6: Click the down arrow beside the Save button. The following dropdown will appear: select Save changes to the current report.

Step 7: After the entries are made on the worksheet, a popup will appear with information – are you sure you want to save changes? Click Save

Why Do People Bounce?

Website visitors bounce for a variety of reasons, but some of the most common reasons are:

• Unrelevant Content: If the content of a web page does not respond to the visitor’s search requirements, the visitor is likely to leave to find a more suitable page.
• Poor User Experience (UX): An eye sore, layout misplacement, slow website speed, or poor navigation are some of the things that discourage visitors and often lead to a bounce.
• Mobile Unfriendliness: Today, when people use their mobile and Tablet devices often, a W3 site that does not conform to these devices will drive visitors away.
• Technical Issues: Any loose ends that do not fit, a pop-up message showing a 404 error’, or a navigation tool leading to a website crash will prompt visitors to run for the closest browser close button.
• Misleading Headlines and Descriptions: Even if you do a great job persuading the visitor to click through to your site if your page title and meta description do not suitably and honestly represent the page’s actual content, you will likely scare the visitor away.
• Slow Page Speed: Many will not wait for the results of their efforts; people are impatient! Visitors will be turned off by slow website speed and will unlikely read any content you have put up fully.
• Hidden Costs or Unexpected Information: If visitors find more links that generate charges or even require them to go deeper after clicking, they can easily get annoyed and leave.

How to Reduce Bounce Rate

Here are some steps to reduce the bounce rate:

1. Suggest Other Content

maybe the content on that specific webpage was not what the visitor wanted to find on the site. Instead of leaving your visitors blindfolded and moving to other sites, you can grab their attention via OptinAble’s highly recommended Exit-Intent Technology to help your visitors navigate to the right area of your site.

Lastly, you can use a related post plugin so that the reader is shown other related posts the writer thinks would be more relevant at the end of the post. Moreover, due to WordPress shortcodes’ perfect compatibility with OptinAble, you could create an exit intent modal with a link to the related articles.

2. Show Targeted Content to Engaged Users

In general, we must consider that randomness is not always negative. Again, a user may come to your article in search of specific information, get it, and then leave without necessarily needing to make any other attempt. This is all right and is the case in most blog posts, especially in the resource section.

But that does not necessarily improve your bounce or conversion rates as a user navigates through multiple pages. In this case, you must present these users with the relevant offer to which they wish to subscribe.

For instance, if a user comes to a post you wrote on cooking, you should not advertise fashion products to that user but a cookery book or a chef’s recipe instead.

OptinAble’s page targeting feature allows you to display different pop-ups to your clients based on the website page they are viewing, the source they entered your site from, and so on. The campaign above can also be set only to appear if the visitor has scrolled a certain number of pixels downwards or spent a particular time on the page.

To achieve these desired outcomes, you must display content that meets your users’ expectations, reduces bounce rate, increases engagement, and drives conversions.

3. Give Users Something Else to Do

CTAs should be placed prominently everywhere, from the home page to subpages and internal pages on your website.

Some CTAs may include buying a digital or physical product, subscribing to your email list, sharing the article, or accessing the contact form.

It was also found that OptinAble can perform all types of CTA campaigns and other targeted niche forms.

4. Display External Media Onsite

Social feeds are also often used to promote one’s content, such as social accounts or video feeds.

However, doing this also unintentionally provides too many opportunities for visitors to bounce. In the meantime, they can see an interesting picture from your Instagram feed and go higher to it. If they only view this page their entire time on your site, it will ensure a bounce even if they are heading to the social media accounts.

It is worth mentioning that Smash Balloon plugins allow you to create elegant social media feeds right on your website. Using SMASH BALLOON, visitors can read the captions, descriptions, and comments simply by clicking an image or a video without being directed to another site.

5. Optimize Content for Search Intent

That brings me to another source of bouncing – SERPs – search engine result pages or the first viewed page of any website. A visitor who clicks a certain link always seeks a particular item. If they do not find the answer or solution fast, they are gone, as the evidence of copyright violation notification shows.

6. Improve Your Site Speed

There are plenty of ways to increase your website’s bounce rate, and one of the simplest is to upgrade the speed of your site.

Users may not spend much time on the website and may decide whether to stay for the first few minutes. If your site’s webpage takes time, they may think they have moved to the wrong link or lose patience and leave.

For the best insights about the speed of your website, you can use Pingdom and Google Page Speed. They also provide insight on how to increase your site speed with suggestions on what to do.

You should reduce the size of your images, use a CDN, improve caching, and, to top it all off, use a faster host provider such as Bluehost.

The second practical solution is to use a CDN to make a website load much faster, which is quite easy. Check our selection of the best CDN service providers to choose the one best suited to your needs and have your site load faster.

7. Optimize Your Site for Mobile Users

It is important to understand that most users access the content via their handheld devices while they are mobile. Please don’t give the impression that they are trying to navigate a full mobile-friendly desktop site shrunk into their tiny screen.

When designing your website, always ensure it can be accessed and navigated through a smartphone. It is also advisable to develop pages that are only optimized for mobiles or use Click-to-Call or Click-to-Scroll buttons to enhance users’ experience on mobile devices. You can read more about mobile landing page best practices here.

8. Make Your Text Readable

Although a picture paints a thousand words, and moving pictures capture more in a shorter time than text, it is estimated that over 90 percent of the information you encounter on a website is relayed through text. There’s no need to make everything look appealingly pink, but at the same time, do not overemphasize the design so much that you forget about making it legible.

For instance, this is a well-liked site in appearance, but most content is hardly readable. The links are non-underlined and low contrast, and the site does not utilize heavy graphics like a flashy navigation bar. The simplified layout is also supported by a banner that claims that the site is optimized for the desktop but is hardly readable due to low contrast. All this leads to a poor USE experience; however, it is worse for mobile website users.

It would be best if you made sure that the text on your website is easily readable on all devices. It shouldn’t be too small, or users must squint or zoom in to read it. Use font sizes that are large enough on smaller screens.

Choose fonts that are clear and easy to read. Cursive or handwritten accent fonts are fine when used sparingly. Use contrasting colors and enough line spacing, font weight, padding, and margin for the text to be readable. This example does a good job of balancing high-contrast body fonts with accent fonts and also uses a high-contrast button call to action.

Another important point to consider is the language and style you choose to use on your website. Use easy-to-understand language in a normal conversational tone.

9. Split Test Headlines and Page Design

Your content may match the visitor’s intent, but the headline or call-to-action is unclear.

That’s why A/B testing different elements on your site is important. A/B split testing is when you create two versions of the same page with different headlines, copy, imagery, social proof, or CTAs. Then, you see which version performs better.

You can also create landing pages targeting different audiences, regions, or keywords. If you serve an international audience, you can detect a user’s location and show them a localized landing page. Showing users content in their language, currency, and cultural background improves user experience and can help improve page bounce rate.

10. Help Visitors Find Their Way

Your webpage may contain all the information that a particular visitor was searching for, but if he or she has to scroll to the middle of the page or even further to find the required information, he or she will likely leave the webpage.

Ensure that your material solves the problem stated in the question or clearly outlines the issue it is attempting to tackle. If you have expansive material, like a blog post or a webpage where sections are divided into articles, including a table of contents or a button with the ‘skip to the good stuff’ message is useful.

For instance, recipe preparation on recipe blog blogs provides information about the recipe preparation process along with conceptual images with many steps described in detail. Some visitors may benefit from that content, but most are concerned with this recipe to cook from. Many recipe bloggers put a button on all their publishings, usually marked as Jump to Recipe. This helps the visitor who needs some recipes to cook today or tomorrow to go directly to the desired part of the blog post.

11. Match CTA to Intent

It is always best to ensure that your CTAs are well-stated and in line with the purpose of the visit.

User intent can fall into four categories:

• Informational: As for the type, some patrons come to the library expecting a definite answer to a question, or perhaps they came to acquire general information on a topic.
• Navigational: when they are specifically searching for a particular website or web page that contains information on a particular subject.
• Commercial: they are in the research-nudging stage or browsing to buy later.
• Transactional: Here, they are signaling that they are going to buy something, or it means that they are going to finish a particular action.

A user searching for information on removing dirt from a sneaker will not be happy to encounter a popup advertisement for new sneaker shoes.

Perhaps, after giving the viewers a thorough guide on how to clean sneakers, you might want to lead them to the post where you have written about your experience with the machine-washable sneaker brand. In contrast, a reader who desires that particular review can also be a vital customer for your affiliate coupon for that brand.

It just circles back to realizing the visitor’s intent and fully ensuring that all the content you put out there as a marketer matches that intent.

12. Optimize Call to Action Placement

This article discusses that most users initially understand and decide to like or dislike a website within the first few seconds. Therefore, it is strategic to have the content and material of the very first part of your webpage compelling, interesting, and engaging. The best way to leverage this section is to describe the product you’re selling as soon as you open the website. The visible ‘Order now’ button is one of the most effective rallying cries.

After listening to the programs, be detailed and sincere about what you want your audience to do. Deceiving users will also create a negative experience, the number one cause of high bounce rates and low conversions.

Here, you have the best methods of dealing with a high bounce rate and improving the overall picture of a website. If you want to achieve your goals when writing your articles but match the articles with the visitor’s intent, then this is how you can keep the visitors happy and the bounce rates low.