So what is a bounce rate?

I've heard it referred to as "the sexiest metric ever," according to Google the definition of "Bounce Rate" as it applies to Google Analytics (Formerly Urchin) is the following:

So in simple terms the bounce rate refers to "I came, I lost all interest, I hit the back button to return to the search results and view someone else's site"

OK you get, I get it but what does it have to do with how effective your site is?

It's quite simple, these days everyone is going crazy trying to drive traffic to their site - they need everyone to see it, read the important information that they have to share, view their listings to either buy, or see how capable they are and hire them to sell their property as well.

If the sites conversion rate is down ie: the phones not ringing despite the hits, seems to translate into "We need more hits. How do we get more traffic? How do we rank better on Google?" yet most don't even look at this the sexiest of all metrics to get the real story.

A high bounce rate doesn't mean you simply need more hits, it means you need to see why your traffic is leaving right away. Unless you have a low bounce rate it's likely all the new traffic you can drive to your site will simply bounce away as well. It's time, energy and often money wasted chasing more bad hits.

With the knowledge of a high bounce rate (40 or greater) you need to investigate the sources of your traffic - are they pay per click ads, organic search returns, direct hits (usually from print or other forms of advertising), which ones have higher or lower rates. It could be that you have a very effective adwords campaign that is resulting in loads of traffic but that your ad copy is misleading and when the traffic arrives your site doesn't match the ad message, or your site description and meta tags don't apply to your content, it could also be that you site serves a poor first impression and the visitors just can't be bothered. You only get one chance to make a first impression - especially on the web.

All in all, the bounce rate is an important metric to begin to increase the quality of traffic and increase the "stickiness" and inevitably increase the conversion rate of prospects on your site.