How Low Can You Go? Instant Traffic by Improving your Bounce Rate
There’s been some talk about website redesign on the Geek Estate blog recently. If you haven’t read them, check out Joshua Ferris’ post about the lessons learned from his real estate site redesign and Matthew Swanson’s insight on testing new site designs without impacting production. Since we’re on the subject, I thought I’d come at the site redesign from an SEO perspective.
There are many reasons to redesign your website. Joshua hit on a great point in his post…to “improve visitor conversion rates and usability”. I mention this, not only because I think it’s the most important reason to redesign your site, but because it ties in with SEO through the statistic know as bounce rate.
What is bounce rate?
If you’re a fan of Google’s free stats tool, then the Analytics bounce rate is defined as:
“…the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page.”
In other words, if a visitor comes to your site and leaves without continuing to another page, they’ve “bounced”. I’m sure you can see the importance of lowering your bounce rate. Let me give you an example.
How does lowering your bounce rate increase traffic?
Since none of my real estate clients were interested in sharing their Google Analytics stats, I’ll take an SEO client from outside the industry to illustrate this. Year to date Dazadi.com has a bounce rate of 57.37%. This means of their 1,040,257 visits 596,795 of them left without visiting another page. If the website was redesigned and the bounce rate was cut in half (to 28.69%) then this sporting good store would essentially increase their traffic by 298,398 visitors or almost 30%! Now for any of you who have worked on improving site traffic, you’re well aware that this type of gain takes a lot of work over a long period of time. But with a site redesign you can make these types of gains instantly.
How low can you go?
In the real estate realm, it is possible to take your bounce rate below 20%. I know because my Hawaii real estate website has averaged this before. In fact, my Oahu real estate page averages below 12%. Compare this to my Honolulu real estate page which averages over 25%. If you take a look at both pages I’m sure the reasons become obvious (yes, I’m working on improving my Honolulu landing page). Is it possible to improve upon this? I believe so.
How do you improve your bounce rate?
The obvious way to lower your bounce rate is to improve your site design. You can see on my Honolulu page that I could throw up a nice photo, add a more prominent search and my bounce rate would most likely go down. However, there are some factors that effect bounce rate that have nothing to do with design, and this is where SEO comes into play.
When you’re building links to your site you want to make sure you’re pointing them to appropriate landing pages. As an example, when you did a search for Kauai real estate in Google 2 years ago the home page of my site was #1. This sounds great, but the problem was that my bounce rate was close to 30%. Why? Because my home page doesn’t say much about Kauai real estate. Over the course of 2 years I’ve focused link building to my Kauai real estate page. And while I now sit #2 in Google for the same term (I’ll get back to #1!) my bounce rate on this page is below 15%. So even though I’m getting less click thrus from Google, more people are staying on my site which has resulted in a higher conversion rate and more leads.
What does the future of search hold in relation to bounce rate?
Many believe that in the near future, search engines will use bounce rate as a factor when ranking sites. Some believe that the future is already here. What are my thoughts on the subject? Well I just redesigned my site and unfortunately my bounce rate went up over 20% (oh well, back to the drawing boards). At the same time my Google traffic dropped. Hmm…maybe blackhatseo.com is correct when they say confirmed: bounce rate is a search engine ranking factor. I think Glenn Sanford of Buyer Tours Realty might agree.
Jeff Manson
Posted at 17:12h, 23 SeptemberGreat post! I agree 100% 🙂 Work on reducing your bounce rate by getting the right page to show up for the user and you will definitely get more conversions.
Here are a few of my main area pages from adrhi.com for comparison:
Home – 21%
Oahu – 16%
Maui – 18%
Kauai – 13%
Big Island – 18%
Hope this will help others have a bench mark from Justin's numbers and ours. I think both sites are well designed and have both tried to create good experience for the user. There is always room to improve though!!!
Justin, I like to new home page photo by the way. Winston has a great eye for that 😉
madisonrealestate
Posted at 20:25h, 23 SeptemberInterestimg article. I'm getting great feedback on my site (launched Jan '09) but my bounce rate always seems to hover around 40% – very high comparied to the percentages bandied about in this article. Sure wish I could figure out what the problem is & how to get that number down.
Bob
Posted at 20:40h, 23 SeptemberGood post Justin.
When we redid http://www.homesalessandiego.com, bounce rate on the home page fell to under 20% and registered users went up over 300%.
One thing to keep in mind is that overall bounce rate may not mean much. There are a few blog posts on there that get a lot of traffic, but it is extremely targeted. The bounce rate on one of them is over 75%, but what the bounce rate doesnt reflect is the the number of comments and contacts that have come from that post. The bounce rate doesn't effect the rankings either. It ranks at #2 behind the IRS page on the same topic.
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Austin Smith - Goomzee.com
Posted at 15:41h, 24 SeptemberGreat post Justin! Our website bounce rate is pretty bad, so bad I don't want to mention it here for fear of getting banned from commenting…
Thanks for the SEO tips…I have been experimenting with my link-backs and its good to know I'm somewhat ont he right track. Keep 'em comin'!
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Posted at 12:48h, 25 SeptemberBounce rate is certainly very important. I think it will probably be some time before that gets factored in to relevancy though.
Bob
Posted at 13:17h, 25 SeptemberBounce rate is not a ranking factor. That myth is spread because it is a metric in Google Analytics. Thing is that bounce rate was part of Urchin prior to being acquired by Google. Google left it in as an aid to the webmaster.
Bounce rate is another metric that can easily be exploited from the outside, therefore it isnt trustworthy enough to be a ranking factor.
Marlow Harris
Posted at 15:04h, 25 SeptemberI agree with Bob, bounce rate is probably not a ranking factor. Too many variables will cause a high bounce-rate, especially if you're doing PPC.
sparesr4sissies
Posted at 12:39h, 26 SeptemberGreat post. I completely agree. I've redesigned my bowling news site a few times and I think that it is as well designed as it can be.
camp185
Posted at 15:28h, 29 SeptemberNot only does that low bounce rate make the numbers go up, but it creates new fans. New fans generate even more page views, make comments, tell others, and on an on. Locking in every new visitor is key!
Name
Posted at 16:07h, 29 SeptemberBounce rate doesn't DO anything. Its simply a statistic.
camp185
Posted at 16:13h, 29 SeptemberSaid that man with no name….and it's actually a rate, that make up statistics for a website if you want to be technical about it.
Bob
Posted at 16:16h, 29 SeptemberThe name is Bob.
It still doesn't DO anything. It's just a measurement of those who dont immediately hit the back button.
What matters is conversion.
camp185
Posted at 16:31h, 29 SeptemberSo are you saying that if I observe a bounce rate of 100% it doesn't matter? Only conversion? By lowering your bounce rate will/do do something. It will improve your odds of conversion.
A high bounce rate DOES DO something else as well. It makes the site owners mad.
What is the point of arguing on how I worded it to begin with….so stupid.
Bob
Posted at 16:53h, 29 SeptemberLowering bounce rate shouldnt be the primary goal. Increasing conversion should be the goal.
What you do to increase conversion can lower your bounce rate. Bounce rate by itself means nothing and needs to be looked at in context. For example, I have a bounce rate on one page that is under 20%. The conversion from visitor to potential lead ranges from 15-20% which is good for this industry. It is also buyer specific.
I have another page which is a blog post that is very specific to one topic. The bounce rate is in the 60-70% range. This page is seller specific, so a high bounce rate is not unusual because the rest of the site is geared to buyers. The typical visitor to this page is after information. The page provides. They read and leave. What is important is that more time is spent per visitor on this page than any other, and by a huge margin. The other important stat is that the amount of business generated by that one page was substantial. Bounce rate could have been 100% and it would not have mattered.
camp185
Posted at 17:02h, 29 SeptemberStill though, you don't get it…You realize this post is about lowering the bounce right? By you stating yourself that it may not be a primary goal you acknowledge the fact that it could be a secondary.
If you reply don't think I will read…I'm no longer subscribed to this post. Good luck in your quest to teach the world that bounce rate doesn't DO anything…
Bob
Posted at 17:10h, 29 SeptemberI actually read the post. Did you read where Justin said, “Joshua hit on a great point in his post…to “improve visitor conversion rates and usability”. I mention this, not only because I think it’s the most important reason to redesign your site,…”
The post is all about conversion. Bounce rate is just one way to measure how much you can improve it.
What you miss is that one can lower bounce rate and not increase conversion.
Karen Goodman
Posted at 21:59h, 17 NovemberJustin,
I'm really hoping that my new site design will reduce my bounce rate…and will get people to contact me for help. This post made an impression as I planned my new site design. But the biggest impact came when I clicked through and saw your site layout.
Wow.
I could see how anyone who landed on your site would immediately know that the site was about proving real estate listings and assistance.
In contrast, my site was really a blog that happened to have a home search page. I realized I had it backwards. I switched it around and am confident that it will improve my business.
I just launched it yesterday, so we'll have to wait to see what happens to the bounce rate. So far, people seem to like it.
Thanks for the inspiration!
Karen Goodman
Posted at 05:59h, 18 NovemberJustin,
I'm really hoping that my new site design will reduce my bounce rate…and will get people to contact me for help. This post made an impression as I planned my new site design. But the biggest impact came when I clicked through and saw your site layout.
Wow.
I could see how anyone who landed on your site would immediately know that the site was about proving real estate listings and assistance.
In contrast, my site was really a blog that happened to have a home search page. I realized I had it backwards. I switched it around and am confident that it will improve my business.
I just launched it yesterday, so we'll have to wait to see what happens to the bounce rate. So far, people seem to like it.
Thanks for the inspiration!
Sporting Goods Review
Posted at 13:10h, 30 AugustI have a website with incoming search term plugin. I do increase my traffic using this plugin since those keywords generate dummy pages that are indexed by google. However, this is also increase bounce rate. If I remove this, certainly the traffic will drop quickly, but not sure about the bounce rate. What should I do?