Let’s chat bounce rate

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Michael Martinez: "Articles are saying that a 41 to 75% bounce rate is the ideal range that most sites fall into. Help me understand this?"
  
  That`s someone`s unscientific idea of what is a good range for bounce rates. Nothing more.
  
  "How is that acceptable?"
  
  Some people need a target. It`s an acceptable target to people who feel that is what works best.
  
  There is no such thing as a "normal bounce rate".
  
  Aggregated bounce rates really have no significance at all. If you have a Website with 100 pages of content, and each page of content appears in 10 queries (on average), then you have a minimum of 1, 000 bounce rates.
  
  But the number of bounce rates for 100 pages could range into the thousands of queries.
  
  Bounce rate - if you`re going to measure it - should only be measured discretely for details like "page + query" or "page + query + region" or "page + query + season".
  
  Anyone who doesn`t talk about bounce rate in those kinds of context isn`t someone whose opinion on bounce rate relates to anything the search engines are doing. ADDED ON EDIT: Really, bounce rate is about what PEOPLE are doing - not search engines.
  
  
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  Mari Sa: Michael Martinez thanks! People are leaving the website
  
  
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  Michael Martinez: Mari Sa People ALWAYS leave Websites. You can`t keep them there.
  
  If there is a specific type of conversion you`re looking for (like a newsletter signup or a product sale), focus on improving the number of conversions.
  
  Ignore bounce rates. They`re a distraction.
  
  
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  Mari Sa: Michael Martinez obviously but at a 70% rate seems high
  
  
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  Michael Martinez: Mari Sa "High" as compared to what?
  
  Just because a bajillion SEO bloggers are rambling on about bounce rate doesn`t mean they know what they are talking about.
  
  It`s a viral topic. People read about it and think, "Oh, this must be important, " so they turn around and write about it - repeating what they read without understanding what it all means (which is really nothing) - and so here someone else comes along and reads stuff about bounce rates and starts worrying.
  
  Ignore bounce rates.
  
  
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  Mari Sa: Michael Martinez if I’m ignoring bounce rates then what data am I supposed to be looking at to tell if a landing page is successful? Can I assume that if the content is super promotional and billboard for the brand vs. content that addresses target’s issues then it probably needs adjusting?
  
  
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  Michael Martinez: Mari Sa What kinds of conversions are you looking for?
  
  If we`re only talking about a blog post that answers someone`s question, there is no reliable method for determining success. Some people use Javascript to track "time on site" but that`s intrusive and still unreliable. What if a visitor takes a phone call after landing on the page and just scrolls down without really reading anything?
  
  
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  Jenni Brown: Try going back up the funnel more and looking at keyword intent - are the visitors landing on the page from informational keywords rather than transactional ones - if so they either need more nurturing or you need to focus efforts on different keywords.
  
  If everything before the bounce seems fine, try adding a pop up "did you find what you were looking for today" or a quick one question survey to find out why they`re leaving.
  
  Numbers are also essential to look at - a 50% bounce rate if you have 2 visitors is very different to a 50% bounce rate with 100, 000 visitors, because 2 individuals isn`t statistically significant.
  
  The reason some articles say that a high bounce rate IIsnt always bad is because it depends what the desired outcome is - for example I work with a lot of bloggers and bouncing isn`t bad for them when it means an affiliate sale or ad click. In your case, unless the checkout is hosted elsewhere, it`s not ideal.
  
  
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  Mari Sa: Jenni Brown isn’t that data only available in search console? I’m waiting on access to that
  
  
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  Jenni Brown: Mari Sa You`ll want to look at GA too, and set up goals if they don`t already have them
  
  
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  Mari Sa: Jenni Brown thanks! I’m building out content for a web redesign and I have a tight deadline. Does it make sense to do that now?
  
  
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  Jenni Brown: Mari Sa As soon as possible because otherwise you don`t have the data to look back at.
  
  
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  Mari Sa: Jenni Brown wouldn’t the data still be available in Google analytics if I backdate it?
  
  
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  Mari Sa: Jenni Brown there’s goals set up. I don’t understand what I’m looking at it. Is there a course on this I can take? Where do I begin? Goal conversion rate?
  
  
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  Jenni Brown: Mari Sa The person who set up the goals should tell you what they did and what the intention is, you may want different ones.
  
  
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  Mari Sa: Jenni Brown they are no longer with the company
  
  
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  Mari Sa: Jenni Brown how do I ask the question about intention in Goals? I’ll see if someone else at the company knows.
  
  
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  Greg Gifford: Bounce rate is a BS METRIC…
  
  It’s been misinterpreted for years. It’s so bad that it doesn’t even exist in Google Analytics 4
  
  Don’t worry about bounce rate, worry about conversions
  
  
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  Mari Sa: Greg Gifford is there any other data that I should be assessing to help determine what kind of edits I need to make to the pages?
  
  
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  Greg Gifford: Mari Sa look at the traffic and conversions.it’s either content meant to convert or meant to inform. But ultimately it’s all about how well it’s driving traffic and conversions. Better SEO = more traffic and more conversions
  
  
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  Ash Nallawalla: In many places where I worked, a 100% bounce rate meant that the SEO was spot on and the user got what they were looking for -- usually an ecommerce site or Yellow Pages listing. Wikipedia`s bounce rate must be in the high 90s.
  
  
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  Richard Hearne: >> Articles are saying that a 41 to 75% bounce rate is the ideal range that most sites fall into.
  
  There is no "ideal".
  
  
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  Stockbridge Truslow: Bounce rate is a relative thing. And one site might have different acceptable bounce rates for different sections or pages. For example...
  
  If you have a page that gives some biographical and credential data on one of the people who train and give certification on your site - a high bounce rate might be fine. They came... they got the info they needed about the person, and then they left. A 90%+ bounce rate is just fine there.
  
  On the other hand, your pages designed to convert people and have them click that "sign up" button - your "ideal" bounce rate is, of course, zero. That`s not a realistic goal though. Depending upon your niche, good conversion rates are anywhere from 4% to 50% or more. In some niches, even a 1 or 2% conversion rate is acceptable. Ideally, you want to provide people with more than just the one choice though - Click to Sign Up, Or Click Here to Learn Even More (and then click to sign up) - or Bounce.
  
  So... if you have a bounce rate of 70% that means 30% did something. If what they did is making you money - be it the direct click to the sale/lead or exploring deeper and hopefully converting later - that 70% is great.
  
  Ultimately, as Google gets better at understanding search intent, your bounce rates on the money conversion pages should go down. Google won`t be sending you as much of that non convertible traffic so if you`re aren`t converting - it`s all on you. If you`re in a niche where Google hasn`t quite gotten the intent sorted out yet - then you might have a higher percentage of traffic that simply isn`t going to convert.
  
  In the end - the "ideal" bounce rate really depends upon the goal of the page. And that ideal bounce rate may look nothing like the "acceptable" the "expected" or the "target" you`ve set.
  
  
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  Buth Main: Google Analytics Help describes a bounce in this way:
  
  A bounce is a single-page session on your site. In Analytics, a bounce is calculated specifically as a session that triggers only a single request to the Analytics server, such as when a user opens a single page on your site and then exits without triggering any other requests to the Analytics server during that session.The bounce rate means the percentage of visits that were one-page visits. How are bounce rates calculated: the number of one-page visits divided by the total number of visits on your website.
  
  What does it mean?You added video on a page. You may see high bounce rate in Google Analytics report. You can set up events as a goal conversions (view video, click play button, etc.) in Google Analytics to reduce a bounce rate on your website.
  
  In my opinion bounce rate is useless metric that means nothing in SEO marketing terms.
  
  Why?
  
  There are many scenarios of using blog.1) Somebody uses your blog to rewrite your articles. This individual can spend much time on your blog.2) Somebody is looking for a specific term. This individual can see it in Google`s SERP without visiting your blog.3) Somebody provides a product research. It can find some useful information or not.