How do I check my bounce rate?

What is Bounce Rate?

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that exit your site on the same page they entered from, without exploring your site further. In other words, it's the percentage of single-page visits.

Bounce rate is an extremely useful metric since it highlights the pages on your website that are under-performing and need attention.

What causes a high bounce rate?

Perhaps your content wasn't relevant to your visitor's search query or they found your site difficult to use or too slow to load. Too many ads and popups can frustrate visitors and turn them away.

Bounces can also result from your visitors finding exactly what they were looking for. For example, a high bounce rate on your Contact Page can be regarded as a positive sign that your visitors are finding your contact details quickly.

How do I check my bounce rate?

Statcounter lets you track your bounce rate for every page on your website. To get started, create an account, add the Statcounter code to your website and go to the Reports section. In the Pages widget, select the Entry tab and then View Report. Bounce rates vary by industry but as a general guide, a bounce rate of under 25% is excellent, between 26% and 45% is good but may need attention and over 45% definitely needs improvement.

How do I improve my bounce rate?

Improve your content

Include multimedia such as photos, videos and illustrations to engage your visitors and help break up the text content. Provide inline links to other related content on your site. Make your keywords relevant to your content and include a unique meta description for each page. Go easy on ads and popups.

Speed up your page load time

Place scripts at the bottom of your HTML page. Use responsive images and compress jpgs to reduce file size. Avoid bloated frameworks that contain redundant code. Use a small selection of web fonts. One or two web fonts is often enough with no more than two or three weights in each.

Boost your website usability

Implement a mobile-friendly responsive design. Make sure your navigation is obvious and clear. Provide a search form. Structure your content into manageable chunks using headings, paragraphs, lists and white space. Stick to common design patterns. Provide clear calls to action.