Did you know that you could learn a lot by analyzing the behavior of the visitors as to how they are arriving on your site and how they leave? Well, you won’t know unless you evaluate the bounce rate vs exit rate of your website. But before proceeding with the topic, it’s necessary to know the basic difference between Bounce Rate vs Exit Rate.
These rates are the measure of the point at which your potential users click away from your site. However, some of us often overlook these numbers or ignore without knowing the fact that they can help you identify the weak spots on your website that might entirely affect the other analytics you measure.
Let’s know the difference: Bounce rate vs Exit rate
Whether it’s the bounce rate or the exit rate that you’re measuring on a web page, ultimately you’re counting the number of visitors who exit your site. The main difference lies in the way they tell you about your website’s performance and effectiveness. Here, we have shown the difference between bounce rate vs exit rate in Google Analytics to let you have a clear idea about their usability.
What is Bounce Rate
The bounce rate is the rate of measuring the percentage of visitors who enter a webpage and exits without visiting any other web pages of the site. No matter how long the visitors stayed on the web page, every bounce matters. For example, if a visitor happens to land on your webpage just to access the address and operational hours, even if the page’s content is equally good, the bounce that counts can signal some problem with the site.
What is Exit Rate
The exit rate tells you where the users exit your website after visiting other pages on your site. Despite the fact that the number includes all kinds of interactions with the website, it might also reveal an issue with your website. Higher exit rate from a content page is not that alarming than a high exit rate on an order page. If visitors, especially those who don’t make a purchase, exit quickly, this indicates that something is wrong with that page.
Importance of Measuring Bounce Rate and Exit Rate
Analyzing the bounce rate vs exit rates of your website is essential as it helps to determine how well the site is performing. Though these rates indicate the point at which your potential users are leaving the website, they do not tell the same story, particularly when jumping from one page to another.
Generally, anyone who visits your site would stick around and jump to multiple pages. But it might also happen that the visitors visit your site for various purposes. For example, they may look for a simple answer for their queries and if they find it on the first page they are likely to exit. So, that’s perfectly fine, perhaps the page was optimized for that kind of search query.
Normally, a landing page is meant to attract a huge traffic and not to be the spot for a quick exit. If you find the bounce rate is high on the landing page itself, it may indicate some issue with the usability of the page. Perhaps it might happen due to the slow loading of the page.
Some pages have the potential of getting higher exit rates, such as order confirmation pages or “Thank you” pages on which the visitors land on after filling a registration form. This is not really a matter of concern as it is natural and it also shows that your potential visitors are leaving after making valuable conversions to the site.
Also, if you find high exit rate on your product pages, then you may need to look out for loopholes on your webpage such as ensuring that the order process is working properly. Thus, a higher bounce rate or exit rate doesn’t matter as long as they occur where they should. The best way to know this is to regularly measure both.
Which is Important: Bounce Rate vs Exit Rate
Comparatively, the bounce rate is more important when it comes to the landing page. You can scan the web pages and mark the pages that call for next action, for example clicking an embedded link for viewing more details. A low rate indicates that the visitors are taking their next action without realizing the eventual outcome of the page. On the contrary, a high rate signals the optimization and improvement of the page. You can ensure this by keeping a close eye on the optimization work of your web pages.
Monitoring exit rates of all your web pages excluding those that are meant to come after conversions also matter a lot. You must be aware of the pages where you want visitors to exit. If you find that your potential traffic is leaving on other pages, this can reveal the engagement of the people with your site and how you can improve.
Thus, active monitoring and measuring of bounce rate and exit rate not only help you recognize the weak spots on your website but also can help you improve other metrics including revenue and conversion rates.
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