[arshadahmed]

Sometimes A High Bounce Rate Is Okay. Site metrics, like a bounce rate, should be looked at on a case-by-case basis to determine if, for example, a bounce rate is good or bad.

For example, the bounce rate for an entrance page (an entrance page is any page where people enter the site from some traffic source) may seem like a high percentage. Let’s say it’s over 70 percent, which many people would assume is bad because it means most people are viewing this page and going no further into the website.

However, a web page may do a good enough job of satisfying a searcher’s query without them needing to go further into the site. For example, if someone searches on “How many websites use Google Analytics” they may find this article on Marketing Land and read that “… estimates suggest as many as 30–50 million websites use Google Analytics” and be satisfied with that answer and go no further into the site.

The same is true for most of the other general site metrics like “time on site.” People often think that a higher time on site or large number of pages per visit is always good.

However, people may actually be struggling to find what they are looking for on your site. They can be clicking around the site, adding to the page per visit and time on site numbers when, in fact, a large percentage of these people may eventually get frustrated and leave the site without taking action.

Irrelevant Traffic. Most often, people quote the bounce rate they see in the Audience Overview in their Google Analytics. This is a sitewide bounce rate, the percentage of single-page visits across the site, for all pages and all traffic sources.

However, it’s not unusual for much of the traffic to a website or a specific web page to be irrelevant. So it shouldn’t be a surprise if those visitors leave the page without going further into the site.

For example, we have a client that mentions some of their of key customers on their home page, one of which is General Electric. Lots of people search on phrases including General Electric. Some of these folks see our customer’s home page in the search results and click through to check it out.

Presumably, when they see there’s just a mention of GM as a customer, they leave (or “bounce”) without going further into the site. Few, if any, of these people are potential customers for our client’s highly specialized products, so we shouldn’t expect them to go further into their website.

Focus On Traffic Segments. Instead of worrying about a sitewide bounce rate, it’s best to examine entrance pages for a specific traffic source, or even specific keywords, if you are running AdWords. (Unfortunately, a large percentage of organic keyword traffic is no longer available in Google Analytics.)

You can do this by looking at Traffic Segments in Google Analytics. See About Segments on Google to learn how to use them. Below is a screen shot of a custom Traffic Segment that focuses on one specific keyword.