Like many aspects of Search Engine Marketing or Digital Marketing generally, Bounce Rate is yet another contentious subject that, while on the face of it, is easy to grasp and understand, in practice, it’s a whole lot more complicated if only due to differing opinions, and as a long-established SEO firm, we have our own.

Google has claimed on many occasions that a high bounce rate, or even a low bounce rate, does not feature in their algorithms and hence does not impact your website’s prominence in search results – we disbelieve this statement strongly. Our reasoning is simple, a) we’ve tested it, b) if we were fortunate enough to own Google, wouldn’t we want to feature sites strongly that seem to please customers so much they hang around, and C) in a weird counter theory, wouldn’t they love it if you bounced back out and clicked on yet another Paid advert via AdWords. So we consider this disinformation.

Further confusion comes when we look at the definitions of a Bounce.

We are a little old school and tend to work to a target of staying on-site for seven or eight seconds. We have seen ten seconds or twelve mentioned, too, but the main consensus is that there is no time limit beyond which you are considered NOT to have bounced. So again, we disagree.

Aside from time spent on the site (so it looks like a worthwhile visit), there is also confusion about whether time is a sufficient qualifier. We think not, and this is one reason why blogs and single-page landing page-type websites (which have minimal or zero extra links to more content or forms, etc.) tend to record high bounce rates of up to around 80%. The consensus seems to be that scrolling through a page isn’t enough to count as an action that defies the Bounce calculation. What counts, as well as time, is viewing at least two pages, filling in a form or taking some action deemed a conversion. It could be clicking/calling a phone number, viewing a video that is not autoplay,  adding something to your bato, or creating a wishlist.

Most content or media sites can expect to see Bounce Rates around the 50% mark. This drops to around 30% for most e-commerce sites, although note that the rate can be higher for B2B sellers. Buyers in business are, of course, time-poor and have less patience than anyone surfing, say, at home.

So, we disagree as to whether Google cares or not.

We think it makes sense to assume they do, as a high bounce rate is probably a good indicator of problems elsewhere, such as the quality of content, poor navigational structures, low-quality images, etc. Fix these issues, and sales should increase along with an improvement in Bounce Rate—a rare win-win.

Most sites should target a rate lower than 40%, and ideally, it’s normal to expect to see similar figures in both your natural (SEO) results and with any paid adverts—it’s another red flag if they are too dissimilar.

Other than that, it’s not vital to get hung up on achieving a specific low figure, as no two businesses are exactly the same. Equally, don’t expect the rate to hold constant or the improvement trend to be something you can plot exactly—just aim for gradual improvement and keep an eye on this metric alongside everything else you need to consider for the smooth running of your online business.

Stuart Haining
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