Bounce rate is one of the first metrics people look at – and one of the most misunderstood. A "bounce" is a session where a visitor lands on a page and leaves without triggering a second interaction. No second page view, no button click, no form submission. That's it.
Crucially, it does not mean "left immediately". A visitor can spend ten minutes reading your entire blog post, close the tab, and that still counts as a bounce. The metric says nothing about time spent or how far they scrolled.
When a high bounce rate is fine
If someone searches "how to centre a div", lands on your article, gets the answer, and leaves – that's a successful visit. The bounce rate will be high, and that's perfectly normal. Single-purpose pages like blog posts, documentation, and FAQ pages typically see bounce rates between 65–90%.
When a high bounce rate is a problem
Landing pages designed to drive a specific action – signing up, adding to cart, requesting a demo – should hold visitors long enough to convert. If your pricing page has a 85% bounce rate, most people are leaving without doing the thing you built the page for. That's worth investigating.
The numbers on their own aren't enough
A bounce rate of 70% on a blog post tells you almost nothing useful. Pair it with scroll depth and time on page, and the picture changes completely.
| Bounce rate | Scroll depth | What it likely means |
|---|---|---|
| High | Deep (70%+) | Visitors read the content and found what they needed. Probably fine. |
| High | Shallow (<25%) | Visitors left almost immediately. The page isn't matching their expectations. |
| Low | Deep | Engaged visitors exploring further. Ideal for landing pages. |
| Low | Shallow | Visitors clicked through quickly – could be good navigation or unclear content above the fold. |
What to do about it
Before trying to "fix" your bounce rate, ask two questions:
- What is this page for? If it's meant to answer a question and the visitor answers it, a bounce is a success.
- What action should visitors take next? If there's a clear next step (sign up, read another article, start a trial), check whether the page makes that step obvious.
Grandma's take: Don't panic over a number. Look at bounce rate alongside scroll depth and time on page. A high bounce rate with deep scrolling is completely different from a high bounce rate with shallow scrolling – and only one of them needs your attention.
Practical steps
- Segment bounce rate by page type – don't average your blog and landing pages together.
- Set up scroll depth tracking so you can see how far bouncers actually get.
- Check your traffic sources. Visitors from irrelevant keywords will always bounce – that's a targeting problem, not a page problem.
- For landing pages, test one change at a time: headline, CTA placement, page load speed.