Tassia Dias
Mar 1, 22 | 9 min read
bounce rate
Reading time: 7 minutes
Achieving a good ranking on Google and other search engines is very important for those investing in SEO. After all, organic traffic derived from these channels is vital to a successful online strategy.
But a question that many Digital Marketing professionals have in mind is: does the bounce rate affect the position of a website in Google rankings or not?
To answer this question once and for all, let’s take a tunisia email list deep look at how bounce rate can affect your business, covering each of the following topics:
What is bounce rate?
Is bounce rate the same as exit rate?
Is high bounce rate a problem?
Does bounce rate make a difference to your Google rankings?
How does bounce rate affect your site?
What can I do to reduce the bounce rate?
What is bounce rate?
Bounce rate is the rate of bounce, that is, when a person accesses a website and then leaves it without interacting or being interested in any other page.
This output can occur in several ways. Users:
clicked the "Back" button in the browser;
closed the page/tab;
were linked to another site — within your own page;
entered a new address;
or have simply been inactive for a certain period of time (30 minutes, following the Google Analytics standard).
Remembering that the calculation of this metric is done by dividing the sessions of a single page by all the sessions.
Is bounce rate the same as exit rate?
It is very common to have confusion with these concepts, but it is important to keep in mind that they are very different terms.
While the bounce rate, as we said before, shows how many visitors have entered and exited a page, without any interaction, the exit rate indicates how many visitors have left a certain page.
Thus, the bounce rate is linked to the landing page. On the other hand, the exit rate, as its name suggests, is related to the page where the visitor leaves the blog or website.
Is high bounce rate a problem?
Typically, the idea of bounce rate is negative, especially for content-focused sites . In the end, the higher the bounce rate, the less interaction there is with the materials produced .
Since this goes against what Google wants for the pages it ranks at the top, the question we posed at the beginning of the article arises.
There are a number of factors that can contribute to a high bounce rate, from lack of solid content planning, poor design, lack of links, etc.
However, it is always good to remember that not all pages are created equal . While some are designed to receive a high volume of interactions, others do not need to prioritize this aspect.
For example, comparing an article to a contact page , the article has a “greater responsibility” for directing the visitor to other pages on the site.
On the other hand, the contact page focuses on providing information on how to contact the visitor and the person does not need to interact further or go to another page after that.
Additionally, according to research by QuickSprout , whether a bounce rate is high or low can depend on other factors such as: market, website goal, page goal, etc.
However, there are some average numbers depending on the type of site. Take a look at the values that are generally found in the main markets:
retailer — 20 to 40%
Simple landing pages — 70 to 90%
portals (example: MSN, Yahoo!) — 10 to 30%
Service Sites/FAQs — 10 to 30%
Sales of services (lead generation) — 30 to 50%
Content sites — 40 to 60%
blogs — 70 to 98%
With valid points on both sides of the argument, how do we know if bounce rate actually affects your rankings? Here’s what we’ll find out in the next section!
Does bounce rate make a difference to your Google rankings?
When faced with such a significant doubt, there is nothing better than consulting those responsible for this analysis, don't you think?
Given what Google says on the subject, the answer is that bounce rate does not affect your search ranking position!
Were you surprised by the answer? Yes, but there are valid reasons behind this statement that clarify the issue satisfactorily:
Not everyone uses Google Analytics
Only pages that have Google Analytics code can capture their bounce rates. Since not all sites use Analytics, this metric is not used.
