What is the bounce rate in SEO? How does bounce rate affect seo? Does it have an important role to play? Are they always bad? You can find more in-depth details below.
Bounce rate measures the percentage of visitors who leave a webpage without taking any action. Such actions include clicking a link, filling out a form, or buying something.
It shows how many people land on your site and leave without engaging further. This makes it a useful metric for assessing whether a page meets user search intent.
Although a high bounce rate is not a direct ranking factor for Google, it can still affect SEO indirectly. It may signal to Google and other search engine result pages that your page didn’t meet your audience’s expectations.
This is why for marketers like you, understanding bounce rate is crucial. You need it to improve your site performance and content strategies.
High bounce rates can be due to slow loading times or poor content relevance.
But that’s not always the case. It doesn’t always measure how long someone stays on the page.
Even well-designed pages with useful content can still have high bounce rates if visitors find what they need and leave.
Why doesn’t Google use bounce rate as a metric?
Bounce rate is a common metric for evaluating page performance. However, Google doesn’t use it as a direct ranking factor.
If you wonder why, Google’s reasoning is simple:
A high bounce rate doesn’t always mean a poor user experience. If users quickly find what they need from your page (like a phone number or a quick answer), they may leave.
On the flip side, a high bounce rate could reflect low-quality content, but that alone isn’t enough for Google to judge relevance.
Fact:
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) has replaced Universal Analytics. This new Google Analytics metric now introduces engagement rate instead of the bounce rate metric.
Now, a session isn’t counted as a bounce if:
- The user is active for 10 seconds or more,
- View multiple pages/screens,
- Or triggers a conversion event.
Google now focuses more on user engagement signals like speed, mobile user experience, and dwell time.
Summary: Engagement rate is now more accurate and insightful for SEO performance tracking. So, shift your focus from bounce rate to engagement rate in GA4.
The two main implications of the bounce rate
The bounce rate in SEO has a significant implication on a website’s performance and search engine rankings.
Understanding these implications is crucial for any online business or website owner looking to optimize their digital presence.
1. Bounce rate is not necessarily bad
To begin with, a high bounce rate isn’t always a bad thing. While ineffective content and/or low accessibility can explain the bounce rate, it can also be due to a mismatch between keywords and phrases, content, or even the purpose of the page.
For example:
A high bounce rate on a homepage or product launch page is virtually unavoidable (especially with the trend in one-page websites).
You may also have a high bounce rate for information-based pages where users can find what they need and then move on.
Wikipedia is a good example of this. As a result, optimizing for bounce rate does not always imply that you are enhancing the quality of your webpage or making it more useful to your visitors.
2. Decreased usability because of high bounce rate
Focusing too much on reducing bounce rate can harm your site’s usability.
For example:
Splitting a single, well-structured page into two to lower the bounce rate may improve analytics, but worsen the user experience.
This approach can disrupt the site’s flow and confuse visitors. Instead, your website’s structure and user journey should be designed with clarity and purpose, not only to manipulate metrics.
Bounce rate vs. Exit rate
Source: CXL
Bounce rate
The bounce rate of your website is the percentage of visitors who arrive at a page on your site and then leave. They do nothing else and do not go to another page on the site.
Keep in mind: Bounce rate is different from exit rate. Bounce rate only tracks “one-and-done” visits — when someone views only a single page and leaves without viewing any other pages on your site.
Exit rate
However, exit rates are a little more complicated. They include the percentage of visitors who leave your website from a specific page, which isn’t always the only page they’ve visited on your official site.
The page they left could have been the last in a long series of page visits. As a result, the exit rate isn’t always as concerning as the bounce rate.
Comparison
Assume you’re comparing bounce and exit rates for a thank-you page. A high bounce rate on that page is concerning because it indicates that people are only viewing that page and then clicking away.
Worse, they didn’t have to fill out a form to get there, which means you’re losing conversions.
However, a high exit rate would not be a cause for concern. It would imply that this page was the last in a series of visits — people exiting from that page most likely arrived from its preceding landing page, downloaded the offer on the thank-you page, and then left to use the website content they had just downloaded.
Remember that this is a hypothetical scenario, and these conclusions may differ depending on other page metrics, but it serves as a simple illustration of the difference between bounce and exit rates.
Bounce rate formula
The bounce rate is calculated by dividing the number of single one-page visits by the total number of visitors because it is the percentage of visitors who only view one page on your site.
For instance, if 100 people click on your website and only 10 of them visit one page, your bounce rate is 10%.
This number may vary over time, so using an analytics tool to monitor changes can help you identify what’s influencing your bounce rate.
What is a good bounce rate benchmark?
If you’ve recently examined your website’s bounce rate, you may be disheartened by the figure. However, if you decide to aim for a 0% bounce rate, you will most likely become even more discouraged.
The average bounce rate is between 26% and 70%, with 26% to 40% being the ideal range (Hubspot).
Landing anywhere under 20% is generally unlikely, so if that’s what your data shows, you need to double-check some things.
Incorrectly reported bounce rates can be caused by duplicate code, incorrectly implemented tracking, and third-party add-ons.
The average bounce rate can also vary depending on the device used by the viewer, even with the same page layout.
Mobile devices, for example, have the highest bounce rate (51% across all industries). The average bounce rate on a desktop is 43%, while the average on a tablet is 45%.
So, when calculating your site’s bounce rate, consider where the traffic is coming from.
To know a good bounce rate for your webpage, you must first understand the distinction between a high and a low bounce rate.
High bounce rate:
A high bounce rate indicates that a visitor’s session duration is brief; they visit a particular page on your site and then leave.
Low bounce rate:
A low bounce rate indicates that visitors are staying on a page and using available links.
A high bounce rate doesn’t always indicate a negative outcome when evaluating the quality of a website.
What determines a good or bad bounce rate is relative and hinges on several factors, including subjective ones.
According to Google, for instance:
If the success of your website relies on users engaging with multiple pages, then a high bounce rate may be detrimental. user behavior
Conversely, if your site is a single-page platform like a blog or offers specific content types designed for single-page sessions, a high bounce rate is entirely normal.
Another perspective to consider is the website’s structural design. Take, for example, an e-commerce website:
Given that you ideally want visitors to linger on pages where they can make a purchase, like a product page, the homepage can exhibit the highest bounce rate.
So, what defines a favorable bounce rate?
A bounce rate ranging from 56% to 70% is generally considered high. However, this might be justified by relevant content or other critical elements.
An average bounce rate typically falls between 41% and 55%. A truly commendable bounce rate would ideally range from 26% to 40%.
In assessing bounce rates, it’s essential to take into account elements such as relevant content, the actual content on the website, internal linking, and the types of content sites offer, including long-form content.
These factors should be tailored to meet the expectations of real users and align with the actual metric of success for the site.
How do you lower bounce rates?
If you want to significantly decrease bounce rate, you should think about what can make it worse and avoid it. Such things include:
- Slow page loading
- Pop-ups
- Unneeded plug-ins
- Usability issues
- Inadequately optimized title tags and meta descriptions
- Technical errors and blank pages
- Content of poor quality
- Non-mobile-friendly webpages
- Incorrectly configured Google Analytics
Monitor your bounce rate
When investigating bounce rates, make sure to look at the big picture. Examine how much time visitors spend on your site, where they’re coming from, and what device they’re using — and whether your content and experience are in sync with all of those variables.
You may discover patterns that indicate how to address the bounce rate issue.
Consider bounce rates to be the “check engine” light on your car. When it happens, you know there’s something wrong, but you need to check all of the car’s systems to accurately diagnose the problem.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution for bounce rates, but understanding what they are and how they can inform your marketing strategy can help ensure the success of your website.
