
The exit rate is a google metric that shows the rate of exits from a web page. It determines whether the user continued to surf your website or not. Its calculation is the percentage of total exits divided by total page views.
There are two types of exits:
1. Unnatural Exits: when visitors unwillingly leave your website due to a technical problem.
2. Natural Exits: when visitors willingly close your website in a browser.
These two terms are often confused with each other. If the user ends the session by closing the first page, this would mean they bounced. However, if the user clicks on another link and browses other pages and then exits, this means they exited. Bounce rate calculation is defined as the percentage of total page visits divided by total entrance visits.
Therefore, every bounce is an exit but not every exit is a bounce. Both terms are important and Google takes both of them into account.
If your website has a high exit rate, you should consider making some adjustments to your website. In order to decrease the exit rate, firstly, you need to understand why people are leaving. The following reasons might be the cause:
Additionally, when you need to give users a reason to stay longer, you need to do much more than just fix the problems above. You might need to change your conversion funnel.
Here are some useful resources which you should check out to better understand funnel analysis:
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): The Beginners Guide
How To Increase Sales With 17 Proven Methods via Digital Marketing