Reduce Web Page Bounces
Improve Search Engine Rankings and Reduce Costs
Bounce rate can be a major source of concern for people using analytics tools like Google Analytics, Omniture Site Catalyst, Webtrends, or other web site statistical analysis tools. Briefly defined, bounce rate is a ratio of single-page visits to your website. Depending on where your site traffic comes from, it can be a major cause for concern. It should also be noted that bounce rate should not be confused with “exit rate” which is usually a measurement of how many people leave the site from a particular page, no matter how many other pages on the site they visited.
What is an ideal bounce rate? This has been a topic of controversy for some time, because it depends on subjective factors like the type of website, sales cycle for the product, traffic source, and the demographics of the target audience.
For most sites:
A bounce rate over 35% is a cause for concern for natural search engine traffic.
A bounce rate over 25% is a concern for pay-per-click traffic.
A bounce rate over 90% for paid traffic may indicate click fraud.
A bounce rate of 85% on a blog may not be bad if your readers only want to see a single update. The same may be true for a news site where people just want to see new headlines.
As you can see, bounce rate depends heavily on traffic sources. Paid traffic should have the lowest bounce rate, unless you have a rare circumstance where paid traffic costs less than other sources. For instance, content match traffic could get by with a higher bounce rate, assuming that you know you’re making money off of it. Bounce rate alone isn’t a good enough reason to kill a paid marketing campaign, but if you can cut out underperforming keywords you will definitely see a reduction in bounces and can spend your marketing dollars on words that convert. There are very few online companies that have the resources to get 100% exposure on sponsored search listings, so reducing your PPC bounce rate is a great way to free up money for other campaigns.
Notes and Special Information
Special note: There are many ofhter factors than bounce rate in search engine optimization, but reducing bounce rates can have a big impact on sales and site efficiency.