Earning online income – be it as a publisher, blogger, Internet provider, or affiliate means needing industry knowledge (just as in any other career or business).
I spend a lot of time speaking with new affiliates and bloggers hoping to earn ad revenue on their blogs and as a result I decided to focus some of my posts on the “Internet terminology’ every publisher (and blogger) needs.
Today ‘s Internet Geek Terminology choice is:
BOUNCE RATE
Where you will see this term ? In your traffic stats .
What is it ? This is a term of measurement that defines the percentage of initial visitors to your website (or blog) who ‘bounce’ away from your site instead of clicking through to a second page within your site.
Example A
Susie lands on your website and sees a second blog post (or page) that she likes – she clicks another blog post to open it and read. Susie is NOT a bouncer 
Example B
George lands on your newest blog post and starts reading – George sees a banner for hot girls in your side bar and clicks it. George goes to look at hot girls (and to download spy-ware and Trojans to his site.) George IS a bouncer. (Of course you don’t have those banners on your site it was just a hypothetical example.
What are other ways a person can ‘bounce’ off their initial visit ?
A visitor can bounce by:
- Typing a new url into their browser.
- Clicking a link on your page to a different website
- Closing the browser window or tab
- The session timing out (inactivity)
So how to you determine your blogs bounce rate ?
Bounce Rate = Total Number of Visits Viewing Only One Page / Total Number of Visits`
What is a good bounce rate?
Pick a card, because it’s not a black and white answer. You have to KNOW the purpose of every page to determine what a good bounce rate is for any page. If you PURPOSE is to get a visitor to click through to an affiliate offer or ad then you want a high bounce rate. If the purpose si to engage the user into registering for your site then you want a low rate.
Generally an AVERAGE bounce rate rate is between 45- 60 %.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I’ve been tring to figure out what bounce rate really meant. I thought it only measured the visitors who left your site. I never knew it took into account a visitor clicking on a link. So a high bounce rate (40%+) potentially isn’t a bad thing afterall.