Bounce Rate: 4 Key Google Analytics Reports to Review

I’m sure you have heard of the term “Bounce Rate” by now, either from a digital marketer or online somewhere. It’s one key metric that may indicate your website’s overall health, performance and overall brand engagement. What you may not have heard is how your website’s Bounce Rate is analyzed. There are four detailed reports in Google Analytics that need to be reviewed thoroughly in order to make an accurate conclusion. In this blog, I’ll show you where to locate these reports and my process for assessing these reports.

Exploring Your Bounce Rate in Google Analytics

First, if you have not already, log into your Google Analytics Account, and then click on the “Audience” tab on the left side navigation. Underneath “Audience” click on “Overview”. By default in the current view, Google Analytics will show you the overall website bounce rate for the last 7 days. For better accuracy, set the date range in the top corner to display at least 90 days. Try to be specific and focus on quarterly and yearly bounce rate metrics in Google Analytics. Focusing on these timeframes will give you the most accurate snapshot of the bounce rate. Find your bounce rate and compare it to the scale below. Our scale is based on research from the sources below and also reviewing all of our client’s websites.

• People and Society Website Bounce Rate Average: 59.4%
• Average Non-Profit Website Bounce Rate Average: 60.1%
• Content-Driven Website Bounce Rate Average: 40-60%
• Lead Generation Website Bounce Rate Average: 30-50%

Sources

https://cxl.com/guides/bounce-rate/benchmarks/

https://neilpatel.com/blog/bounce-rate-analytics/

https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/whats-a-good-bounce-rate/

 

1. Most Entered Website Pages

Now that you know your website’s entire bounce rate as a whole, you can dive deeper and understand which pages (or categories) may be raising your website’s bounce rate. But you must first determine which pages have the highest percentage of entrances. The more people who enter the site from a single page, the more weight that page carries on the total bounce rate. It’s important to know that and understand the math. Almost always, the home page will be the most entered and carry the most weight. But often, pages like services and blogs pages, when considering the cumulative amount of each of these categories, make up for more than home page entrances. And typically these pages share a similar template framework and have similar data in the Google Analytics reports. As mentioned at the beginning of my blog, every website is different when reading the bounce rates, so I’ll show you how to find these reports for you to make a judgment on the data.

In the left-hand sidebar, under Reports, click Behavior > Site Content > All Pages. By default, you should now see the Top-Ten most viewed pages. Click on “Entrances” in the data chart headers. This will now sort the table by the top ten most entered pages. And to the right of that, you’ll see the page’s bounce rates.

 

2. Comparing New Users vs Returning Users

This report won’t be surprising to you but it’s worth monitoring to know for sure if the updates you make are making an impact. News visitors will have higher website bounce rates than Return visitors. Return visitors are typically brand loyalists and are already comfortable navigating the website because they have before. So, it only makes sense that they will come back to the site to find information. New visitors can either become Return visitors or, well, never come back. Pretty simple. The takeaway here is to make sure there isn’t huge diffraction between the two categories.

To find this report in the left sidebar navigation, click Audience > Behavior > New vs Returning.
 

3. Analyzing Types of Platforms Used

Platform comparison is probably the easiest to evaluate and determine what needs improvement. Here you will compare the bounce rate on Google Analytics between Desktop, Mobile, and Tablet users. It’s the easiest to evaluate because you can navigate your website and pretty much tell if your website is good or bad in each of these platforms based on your own website navigation experience. Typically, this data will inform us that your website needs to consider a better mobile responsive experience. I’m monitoring these averages often based on trusted sources but here are the basic averages I tell clients to aim for:

 

Desktop: 56%
Mobile: 69%
Tablet: 61%

To find this report, click on Audience > Behavior > New vs Returning.

 

4. Reviewing the Channels Report

The final way I review the details of a website’s bounce rate is to understand where most of the traffic is coming from. The Channels report breaks down into these most common categories: Organic (Search Engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo), Direct (Direct URL typing in the browser’s URL bar), Referral (Typically links on other websites that are directing to your website), Social (Social media websites) and Email (Email marketing software like MailChimp. But must be set up correctly).

Averages Include:
Organic Search: 48.44%
Direct: 47.69%
Referral: 51.63%
Social: 57.99%
Email:

*Average of three credible sources:
https://cxl.com/guides/bounce-rate/benchmarks/
https://www.similarweb.com/corp/blog/bounce-rate/
https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/whats-a-good-bounce-rate/

When reviewing your website’s bounce rate in Google Analytics, don’t panic if your metrics are higher than industry averages. Instead, turn your energy towards improving those pages in a way that caters to your audience. Need help? The team at designRoom can help you identify areas of improvement and help you create a healthier brand and website. Contact us today.

About designRoom

Whether creating a new behavioral healthcare brand or refreshing an old one, the magic is building a healthy relationship between the client and the branding firm. At designRoom, we believe in keeping things down to earth and down to business. We are designers, writers, and project leaders building healthy brands for healthcare organizations that help people. As an award-winning national branding and design firm, you can feel confident that our team can work alongside you to tell your story and promote your brand. Let’s talk about your brand and how we can make it healthy! Call us directly at 216-241-2020.