Understanding Bounce Rate

Your bounce rate is a critical metric for your website.  Simply put, it is the percentage of visits to your site that are single-page sessions, with the participant leaving without viewing another page. In Google Analytics, these one-page visits are each considered a “bounce.” 

To calculate your bounce rate, just divide the number of one-page visits to your website by the total number of entrances. For example, if a website homepage receives 500 visitors over a one-month period and 200 of those visitors leave the site after viewing the homepage, the bounce rate for the homepage would be 40%.

It’s commonly accepted knowledge that a low bounce rate is good and a high bounce rate is bad. That said, bounce rates can be quite high and still be fine.  Factors at play in determining your site’s ideal bounce rate include the source of traffic to your site and the type of page people are visiting. For example, an organic search leading to an informational article designed to answer a specific question may prompt bounce rates as high as 85 to 90%. This may not mean that the page is poor, but rather that the visitor found what they needed on that page and then left.

A better indicator of your site’s success would be to measure with whether your bounce rate is fluctuating. You want it to stay relatively steady, whether it’s naturally high or low. You’d probably prefer to see a low bounce rate for your site, however, so here are some tips for achieving that goal.

Lowering Your Bounce Rate

You can successfully lower your bounce rate by:

• Making sure that your most effective content is displayed above the fold.
• Keeping your content fresh.
• Sharpening up your website design to make it more appealing to visitors. This includes altering font size and spacing, improving graphics quality, and using more effective color contrasting. 
• Devising your website so visitors can locate what they are searching for in a minimal number of clicks.
• Having clear, accessible calls-to-action (CTAs).
• Providing a large search bar with a clear navigational structure.
• Ensuring that your website is readable on mobile devices.
• Modifying your page load time if it is more than a few seconds long.
• Removing pop-up ads and other data-heavy features.

Track your inbound traffic sources as well. If one channel (such as referrals, organic search, paid, direct, or social) has a larger bounce rate than others, revisit your law firm marketing campaigns for that channel.

A Deeper Dive Into Bounce Rate Analytics

If you’d like to get more into the details of analyzing bounce rates, check out Neil Patel’s article Bounce Rate Analytics: How to Measure, Assess, and Audit to Increase Conversions. It offers some tips on how to determine if your bounce rate is normal for your industry and what factors are causing it to change.

Bounce rates are important to consider when figuring out whether or not your law firm marketing strategy is effective. However, it’s just as important to realize that a good bounce rate will vary depending on the site. Don’t compare your bounce rate with others’ – instead, focus on a strategy that works for you.