Web Site Bounce Rates

Bounce rates are that percentage of your website visitors who leave your page after viewing only the entrance or landing page.

Some recent web discussions have focused on whether Google may now be using bounce rates as part of your site ranking for particular terms.  The evidence, while intriguing is still rather flimsy.  Yet the discussion continues to miss an important potential confound:  Bouncing is the result of visitors not finding your site useful to their needs (needs indicated by their search terms)

Bounce Rates should concern you because of what they represent about your site relevancy and usefulness of your content.   A high percentage of ‘bounces’ indicates that visitors are not finding your content relevant enough to continue navigating through the site. Google has consistently claimed that they continue to refine their search algorithms such that fresh, relevant content will always be the key.  A high bounce rate indicates that your content is either not useful in relation to the term being searched for, or your product/service is not competitive compared to your online competition.  Thus, regardless of whether Google considers your bounce rate or not, the results on your seo efforts will be the same.

Troubleshooting a high bounce rate:

Should you notice a high bounce rate on your site check the following information to troubleshoot the problem:

• Check the most frequent keywords/terms that send visitors to your site.  Are they truly relevant to the content and purpose of your site?
• Is the content of your landing page relevant and useful to a visitor who lands there using your most popular search terms?
• Compare your site to your competition.  If you are offering a product or service are your rates or offerings out of line when it comes to value/cost/usefullness?

Like many other issues with web sites and search engine rankings, the efforts you put into ongoing statistical analysis are just as important as the efforts put into the site content.  In fact, the two go hand in hand.