The bounce rate of a web page is the percentage of visitors to that page who leave your site from that page without visiting any other page on your site. This is a very important piece of information.

Most analytics software should report on the bounce rates for the pages of a site. In Google Analytics, for example, there is a report called “Entrance Bounce Rates” that is located in the “Navigational Analysis” section. It shows the number of entrances, number of bounces, and bounce rate for every page on a site that acted as an entrance point.

To start with, if the bounce rate of your home page is high, then you’re in trouble. You need for people to use your front page as a starting point to explore your site. The exception is if you have a one-page site, such as a salesletter-style site. If you have a one-page site intended to accomplish some purpose such as getting newsletter signups, then a better metric to examine is the conversion rate.

The bounce rate can also help you determine the effectiveness of landing pages. For example, if you are running a pay-per-click campaign and split-testing two different landing pages, the bounce rate of each page will give you a good idea of each pages’ “stickiness” (although, as always, the conversion rate is the number one measure).

Use the bounce rate of pages on your site as a gauge of how effective those pages are. Do everything you can to compel the reader of your web copy to perform some action – to visit some particular page on your site to make a purchase or fill out a form. If your bounce rate is high, then readers do not feel sufficiently comfortable or interested enough to spend more time with you. That has to be fixed. Try different things, using the bounce rate as your guide. If the bounce rate starts going down, then you’re headed in the right direction.

For help tweaking your site to improve your web page bounce rates, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.