If someone sees only one page of your web site before they decide to leave, did they bounce or did you bounce them?

I don’t think it’s simply a semantic distinction. Talking to marketers about bounce-rates the general impression is usually that ‘these things happen’. And while often the conversation includes a discussion of reducing the bounce rate, there often seems to be an unspoken assumption is the visitors were unqualified or fickle or otherwise to blame.

We’re guilty (at Commerce360) of perpetuating this mindset in the way we often describe the issue to executives new to the term: “It’s as if people came to visit your business, took one step inside the door, then turned around and left.”

I think we’d all be better off if we turned the language around. They didn’t bounce. You bounced them.

They came to your site – on purpose. They clicked a link because they thought you could answer their question, solve their problem, or otherwise help them attain whatever it was they were seeking. In most cases, you created the impression that your site could help, with the ad you ran, the keyword you purchased, or the content that inspired someone to link to your site. Somehow your marketing or your site attracted this person.

But when they arrived, the site didn’t fulfill their expectations. In effect, the site told them to leave, because the information or solution they sought probably wasn’t there, or wouldn’t be complete or accurate, or just that it might be available but would require some work to get at it. Or maybe your site created an impression that just made them not want to do business with you – I ‘get bounced’ from small online stores all the time not because the business is small but because the site makes them ‘seem’ too rinky-dink to be credible.

There are hundreds of possible reasons why people leave so quickly, and obviously some of them are more about the source or the visitor than the site. But the vast majority of bounced visitors are failed opportunities, and when marketers accept these numbers as ‘normal’ they’re doing both the business and the visitors a great disservice.

The people you bounce from your site – especially when stacked up by the hundreds of thousands - should become the motivation and justification for spending the time and money necessary to help your website live up to its (expressed or implied) promises.