Bounce rate is a metric to indicate how many visits to your website were only to one page before the user exited. It is not to say that if a user only visits one page and then leaves that there is something wrong with the website. The user could have found the information looking for or may have followed a link from a site to another. Affiliate marketing sites will not so much look at the bounce rate if the user came in via a search term, but rather where the user went from the page. If the user clicked on the link leading to the landing site it will indicate success.

Another instance where the bounce rate will not matter that much is the first page of a blog. The user may have read all the posts on the main page and then leave – not an indication of poor website performance, but rather that the user has found the content useful, provided the time spent on the first page was enough to read through the various posts. In this instance you will look at the time spent to measure website performance as part of internet marketing rather than the actual bounce rate.

How to measure the bounce rate as an indication of website performance related to internet marketing

The bounce rate is obtained by looking at the number of visits to the page. The formula for the bounce rate will be number of one page visits divided by the number of persons entering the website through the specific page. Google Analytics is an excellent tool to use if you want to identify the bounce rate. Many of the website analytics and statistics tools normally found at the website control panel also provide the information without having to do complex formulas to get to the answer.

Why is the bounce rate so important for measuring website performance as part of internet marketing?

Often when clients approach an internet marketing company because their site is not performing as desired, the internet marketing company will first use an analytics tool to discover flaws in the site and thus identify areas that can cause poor website performance. The bounce rate is one of those metrics used simply because it is such a good indicator of what is transpiring on the website. High bounce rates universally give an indication of poor website performance except for the cases already discussed. If someone lands on a page and then leaves without visiting another page or taking an action it indicates that the person did not find what they were looking for or it was their perception.

When is the bounce rate high and thus an indication of poor website performance?

Above 90% normally indicates that there must be some kind of technical difficulty while a bounce rate above 70% can indicate a problem with keywords or content and information structure including navigation. The range between 30-60% is rather difficult as it can indicate a bit of a problem, but not enough to give a clear indication of what the problem area may be. In this respect you may want to also check where the visits originated from and analyse whether the links to your site were not relevant. Below 30% means your website performance is excellent and you are at least getting part of the internet marketing spending back. Keep going on this track!

Internet marketing companies will also look in-depth at the website performance to see whether there is a problem with content, specific types of traffic or technical problems which may cause high bounce rates at specific pages.

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