In the world of digital marketing, trends come and go. However, one constant remains – measuring and analysing performance. One of the most popular statistics regarding web traffic is referring to ‘hits’ and ‘bounces’. What are these numbers exactly? What do they mean? How can I improve my bounce rate? These are some of the most common questions asked when trying to optimise online marketing efforts. Let’s dive into the answer.

What Are Hits and Bounces?

When a person comes to your website from a search engine, social media landing page or organic traffic, they are usually classed as a ‘visitor’. Once they have arrived, they may either stay on your site for a while (bounce) or navigate to another page (hit) without clicking on any content (also known as a ‘cold’ or ‘dead’ click).

Hits and bounces can be measured using Google Analytics. When a person lands on your website, they are usually presented with content depending on what they were searching for. If they were searching for a product, they may be presented with a page describing the features of your product. Alternatively, if they were looking for restaurant information, they may be shown the opening hours of a local restaurant. The point is that Google Analytics will track the behaviour of individuals on your site – whether they stayed on one page for a while or moved on to another.

What You Need To Know About Hits And Bounces

When measuring the performance of a website or digital marketing campaign, it is important to look at both the number of individual visits (hits) as well as the percentage that stay on the site (bounces). While it is great to receive a high number of visitors, if they are all ‘bouncing’ off the site, it may indicate that something is wrong.

Similarly, while page views are important, the total number of pageviews does not provide any information regarding the engagement of the audience. If all of your website visitors are ‘cold’ (ie they have not engaged with your content at all) the chances are you are doing something wrong.

Why Are Bounces Dangerous?

As the name implies, a bounce is when a person leaves your website immediately after visiting it. A bounce is considered to be a negative interaction – an indication that something is wrong. When trying to optimise web traffic, it is therefore important to watch out for and reduce the number of these visits as much as possible.

There are many reasons why people may stumble upon your site then quickly leave without engaging with your content. Maybe they found what they were looking for and left fearing they would miss out if they did not act fast. Maybe they were tricked into coming to your site by a scam email, which then made them wary of any content that might appear on the site. Or it might be that they simply did not like what they found and left without having the chance to explore more.

Whatever the reason for the bounce, it is important to reduce the number of these visits as much as possible. If a visitor finds that your site is not an optimal match for what they were looking for and clicks on a single link to leave, this is usually recorded as a bounce. In a perfect world, no one should ever leave a website without first having a look at what it is that the website is offering.

What Is A Non-Bounce?

A non-bounce is when a person stays on your website for a while before leaving. A non-bounce is not necessarily a good thing – it can mean that you are losing out on potential business or that you have not yet found the right match between you and your audience. However, it is always a good thing to have a high number of non-bounces.

If you notice that a large number of your website’s visitors are frequently ‘bouncing’ off the site (ie they are only visiting for a very short time before leaving) you may want to consider whether or not this is a problem. Alternatively, if you notice that individuals are consistently engaging with your content then this is usually considered to be a positive sign.

In most cases, a non-bounce simply means that your website is providing content that is interesting and hopefully engaging to your audience. Frequently ‘bouncing’ off a site indicates that either the content is not interesting enough to keep the visitor engaged or the individual does not have the right psychological make-up for success in business.

How Can I Improve My Bounce Rate?

While it is critical to reduce the number of bounces as much as possible, this does not mean that you should stop measuring and considering the impact that your website has on your bottom line. If you are not measuring and considering the impact that your website has on your bottom line, then you are simply throwing away money. To put it simply, if you want to improve your bounce rate, determine the reason(s) why visitors are leaving and fix these.

Google Analytics allows you to see how individuals interact with your content. From here, you can determine the different forms that this interaction might take. Perhaps you notice that the vast majority of your pageviews come from users who have directly navigated to the page they are interested in. This is usually a good thing, as it shows that your content is interesting and possibly even useful to your audience. However, if this is the case and you have not previously engaged with them, maybe you should consider doing so.

As an online marketer who is looking to improve their performance, these are some of the most basic metrics that you should be tracking. By identifying the reason(s) why individuals are leaving your website, you may be able to improve your performance and raise your website’s bottom line.