Bounce rate is a metric that gets a lot of press and for good reason. It often serves as a strong indicator that your website is not engaging the user, ultimately meaning that they leave a page without interacting with it (i.e. they ‘bounce’ off the page). However, like anything in SEO or digital marketing, improving your bounce rate is not a silver bullet. Yes, it should deliver results and deliver better results for other metric, but always keep in mind that the sum of all parts is far more important for an ROI-driven campaign.
For those of you who may be new to digital marketing, a “bounce” and “bounce rate” are defined by Google as:
- Bounce: “a single-page session on your site”
- Bounce Rate: “single-page sessions divided by all sessions”.
Google’s full explanation[1] is actually pretty good. It goes into some detail with regard to when a high bounce rate is indicative of issues, and when it might not actually be that bad. For example, if someone is looking for a quick answer they may not be interested in further reading, in which case a high bounce rate for that particular piece of content is acceptable. On the other hand, if the page has been designed to convert customers through additional information or calls to action, then a high bounce rate may be indicative of poor performance.
User intent and value permeate everything
Simply dictating x amount of steps to reduce your site’s bounce rate will no doubt be useful to a lot of people; however, in many cases it is just as important (if not more important) to understand the why instead of merely the