It’s not been too mad in recent months to be honest, since the arrival of the fabled Bounce Rate measurement in Google Analytics (and it’s common inclusion into almost any Web analytics analysis done today), there was definetly a small panic movement as to “omg omg omg! My bounce rates are higher than 20% and my site is soo b0rked and my sales are flying downhill!”

Well, that really isn’t the case.  Before you go and get too worried about your bounce rates, don’t worry too much.  In fact, as has been said before on the web and as I’m mirroring here – High Bounce Rates Are Not Always Bad. In fact, on some sites…they’re a good thing.

If your site is a blog or information providing site such as Wikipedia, with lovely SEO and lots of nice direct SERP links to topical pages, then you will have high bounce rates and that will be good!  It will mean people are landing exactly where they want to be, fulfilling their need and then leaving.  People searching for information about a topic, store opening times, where to find you, prices, or any other action that can be fulfilled all from one page will be happily getting this and then leaving. Clocking up a bounce for you.  But it’s ok!

If you’re a retailer and trying to lure then into the site with promises of discounts and gold however, then it’s probably not so good.  Stronger call to actions needed and yada yada yada…But just remember, please -

High Bounce Rates Are Not Always Bad – Sometimes They Are Good!