Bounce Rate – A Considerable SEO Factor

SEO Facts related to Bounce Rate

Today I am going to discuss one of the basic factors of SEO. The "Bounce Rate".

What is Bounce Rate?
Bounce rate is a measure which shows the percentage of visitors who leave website by visiting single page. More specifically, visitor bounces back from the website from a single page and doesn't navigate through the website.

Why Does it matter to take care of bounce rate?
The bounce rate is one of the 200+ factors Google [and other search engines] consider in SERP [Search Engine Results Page]. Now, consider the scenario that your website ranks in the top result of search engine. A visitor searches for a query and visit your website. The visitor leaves your website by visiting single page, may be within a few seconds. Now, assume 95% visitors leaves your website by visiting only one page of the website. Now, think from search engine's perspective which wants to show the best match result to visitors. As your bounce rate is so high, the search engines will start assuming that your website is irrelevant to that query. As a result, search engine will start de-ranking your site/webpage for that search query.

Factors which can increase Bounce rates

• Too many popups.
• Irrelevant topic/title/ heading and content.
• Irrelevant anchor text and links. For ex. giving link of cauliflower on anchor text "flower". 
• Poor/irrelevant landing page.
• Poor design.
• Poor menu item names.
• Mobile unfriendly website, i.e., Unresponsive website in an era when people surf on their tabs and mobiles.
• Developers who open website in live instead of local for minor issues [Don't do it if it isn't really required] .
• Testing team who open website for single page testing in live [Don't do it if it isn't really required]  
• Team members like HR, BD, developer, designer, QA who opens the single page to get some information [which can be gathered from local version, database, admin and many other related sources].
• Many More

In general, anything which is irrelevant to the user will lead user to leave your website. Bounce rate effect not only rankings, but also the conversion rate. Thus, it is advisable that you keep all the points in mind from the user's perspective when optimize your website. Try to reduce the possibilities of bounce rate and make it an engaging website for users to enjoy good rankings.

Hope this information helps! Still have confusion? Feel free to ask your questions via comments.

Ash Vyas is working in Internet Marketing field for 6+ years. Have experience in handling projects of SEO, SMO, SEM, Content Marketing etc.
Likes : Blogging, Learning, Networking, Traveling, Photography
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Posted in: bounce rate,ranking factors,search engine optimization tips,SEO Factors,SEO Tips