Understanding Bounce Rate

If you’ve been working in #seo for any amount of time, you’ve surely stumbled across the term “bounce rate.”

One of the most hotly debated parts of search engine optimization, it’s been subject to a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding. If you’re not sure what yours means, then you’re in the right spot.

I’m going to clear up the misconceptions surrounding this metric and give you some insight into what yours means — and how to fix it.

What is Bounce Rate?

According to Google, “a bounce is a single-page session on your site… Bounce rate is single-page sessions divided by all sessions, or the percentage of all sessions on your site in which users viewed only a single page and triggered only a single request to the Analytics server.”

In plain English, that means it’s the percentage of people who only visit one page on your site and then leave. It’s NOT the same thing as exit rate, as bounce rate only tracks single-page visitors.

What’s a Good Bounce Rate?

Every website is going to have some bounces. Whether it’s inadvertent link clicks or misunderstandings, you’re going to have some percentage of web visitors who almost immediately leave your site.

Obviously, you want your bounce rate to be as low as possible, but what’s a good rate? That’s going to depend on your niche.

A study by Siege Media?that analyzed over a billion sessions found a good bounce rate to be somewhere around 50%. The overall global average is around 80%, but again, that varies by industry.

For example, the travel industry’s bounce rate is 82.58%, while real estate is only 40.78%. For a blog, a 70% bounce rate is considered good.

Is a High Bounce Rate a Bad Thing?

Okay, here’s where it gets really interesting — logic is probably telling you a high bounce rate is a bad thing. The reality is that in some circumstances it’s actually a positive sign.

For example, let’s say you want to find out when Richard III was King of England. It’s probably only going to take you one click to find out that information, because Wikipedia or whatever website you land on will quickly and easily answer your question.

Informative pages are going to have higher bounce rates, particularly for people seeking specific things like your contact information or a restaurant’s menu.

However, if your site depends on visitors viewing more than one page, you’ll probably want to get yours as low as possible. Keep reading to learn how to do that.

Does Google Factor Bounce Rate into Your SEO Ranking?

Bounce rate is not a Google ranking factor. It’s a useful metric you can use to improve the quality of your site, but it has absolutely no impact on how you’re ranked.

How Do You Improve Your Bounce Rate?

If you find yourself facing a higher-than-desirable bounce rate there are a number of things you can do to remedy the situation once you’ve identified what’s causing it.

Here are some things to check:

• Relevancy — Is your page answering the search query it’s showing up for? If not, you may be getting clicks from visitors who are expecting something other than what you’re delivering.
• Loading Speed — Everyone has clicked on a link, waited roughly 1.5 seconds for it to load and then navigated away before it happened. Slow-loading sites create poor experiences and drive visitors away. Check yours with Google’s?Core Web Vitals?report.
• Responsiveness — Mobile devices account for nearly 60% of all web traffic.?If your site isn’t friendly for mobile users, they’re going to bounce.
• Internal Linking — The links from page to page within your website are how search engine crawlers determine the layout of your website, but more than that, they also help keep users on your website, thereby lowering your bounce rate.
• User Experience — Sites that are annoying or confusing to use are going to have higher bounce rates. Make sure yours creates good experiences.

Why You Should Monitor Bounce Rate

By now we’ve established that bounce rate doesn’t affect your SEO ranking, and a high bounce rate can be either a good or a bad thing. So why should you concern yourself with it?

I’m glad you asked.

Bounce rate is a good indication of the overall health of your website. If you’re suddenly experiencing higher than normal bounces or your new pages are causing a lot of one-and-one visits, it could be a sign of a bigger problem with your website.

And by looking into yours, you can find and fix it, setting your site up to be successful.

Bounce Rate is Just One Part of a Website’s Health

To keep an eye on your website’s health and ensure you’re ranking as highly as possible, there’s nothing like?Evisio. By automating tedious manual reporting and giving you sequential, easy-to-understand steps to optimize your website, it will save you hassle — and help your site rank better.

See what it can do for you.?Contact me?for a free trial. #bouncerate #userexperience