Basketballs, Websites, and Bounce Rates

In the race to keep relevant websites in a top position and traffic-generating role, the bounce rate has become a tool that search engines use to measure how well your keywords match your landing pages. Before we discuss how to improve your bounce rate, let’s look at the definition of this term.

BOUNCE RATE is the percentage of users that left (bounced from) your site in a limited time frame without viewing other pages. Bounce rate is a good measure of visit quality; a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance (landing) pages aren’t relevant to your visitors. You can minimize bounce rates by tailoring landing pages to match each keyword that visitors search. Landing pages should provide the information and services that were promised in your search listing.

A visitor is said to “bounce” if they leave your page within 5 seconds of landing there. Although standards have not been established, typically bounce rates range between 25 to 50 percent.

SUGGESTION: If a visitor lands on your website after their search for the phrase “sculpture” and that page displays artists who paint, more than likely, the visitor will leave and the bounce rate may approach 100%. To remedy this, try to customize various landing pages to certain keywords. When the visitor is drawn to your site by the keyword phrase “sculpture” that page should address only artists that sculpt.

Keeping the bounce rate low is a surefire way to keep visitors interested in your website while increasing your relevancy to search engines.