Are Click-Through rates & Bounce Rates as Ranking Metrics ?

[conversiontactics]

There are lots of articles around but I would prefer to see what everyone here has to say about it.

Are they ranking metrics ( directly or In-directly )?

If they are then how to get it right?

Can i depend on  Google  In-page analytic?

What is  an acceptable Bounce rate for a home page ?

What is an average click through rate for your landing page ?

thanks

[RobertFisher]

There are ways to use math to balance CTR based on position (simple ratio and proportion), and search engines may or may not do so. Depends on who you believe. 
But, if you look at Dr. Pete's post in Feb on The 2 Metrics that Matter for SEO  you will see how dwell time may be more important.

Interesting stuff this SEO.

Best

[Gamer07]

And it's only half the story. We changed the page design for a certain page and while the bounce rate has decreased, our conversion rate has also hit the bottom. This is a high-degree equation with so many variables, and you don't even know some of them. I guess that's why there is the A/B testing.

You will have to keep testing.

As for R. Fisher's answer, I would guess (and hope) Google to not take every page on 1st page the same way. We know most searchers don't even scroll (or look) to see beyond top 4-5 results on SERP's. It is normal for any site between 6-10 to have a lower CTR than the sites at 1-5.

[DougRoberts]

While they may not be using metrics from your analytics (bounce rate) I would suggest that which sites get clicked in the SERPS and which sites result in visitors returning immediately to the SERPS to click on another result are used by Google. We know that they can detect people returning to the SERPS as they sometimes/used to present you with the option of blocking the site.

From an SEO's perspective this means that it's not just important to rank, but to rank for the right keywords, where the intent and users expectation are going to be satisfied by the page your providing.

Bounce rate can be a bit of a fickle metric - a high bounce rate could mean that the visitor lost the "information scent" when they visited your page (what's in it for me!) or found that the page quickly and efficiently answered their question.

Either way, if the site owners goals is to get the visitor to accomplish some addition action/goal beyond providing information then it's probably not a good sign.

If you page isn't getting the clicks it deserves in the SERPS then, as Robert said, it's time to take a look at the Title/descriptions to make them as compelling as possible and convey the reasons why the searcher needs to click on your entry!

[conversiontactics]

Thing is bit scare to change the page layout, if the data is unreliable it could cause the bounce rate to increase and it would cost the client design and development hours. Is there a more accurate tool in the market.

Thanks

[RobertFisher]

If you are saying use those analytics to change outcomes, I say do it. Will it necessarily improve the page rank, I don't know that it will. But, if a site owner focuses solely on rank and ignores conversions, what is ranking worth?

[RobertFisher]

Dan,

I've seen Matt's piece on this but still see it as a bit counter - intuitive. I think at some level, (maybe not PR per se) I still see a site with bad CTR to a page as moving down. So something is affecting it.

Good answer though,

Robert

[conversiontactics]

Thanks Robert,

What do you think about using in-page analytics to improve your page, ive heard that its not reliable. what are your thoughs?

regards,

[RobertFisher]

Yes and most likely are the best answers:

Yes in that if you put a new site up and due to freshness a page is on page one, but the meta description does not fit the query and no one is clicking on the SERP link, therefore little or no Click throughs, you are going off the page quickly.

Obviously, especially with black hat SEO, when someone misleads with a meta description and you land on a page that is no where near what you were looking for, you leave in a heartbeat or less - you bounce. So, one mechanism that Google has is to see that for what it is and count that against you. But, if your bounce rate in your vertical is normally around e.g. 50% and you are close to that number, you are likely ok. If you are a bit better you are likely improved.

So, you want good meta descriptions so that you get people to the page and you want great content to keep them there.

We took on a new client about 6 months ago and he was ranking in top 2 to 3 for almost every major kw in his vertical locally. After a new site, better content his CTR is improved by about 25% and his bounce rate by roughly 5 to 10% (45 to 35-40). His pageviews doubled (images I think) and his time on site is up by over a minute.

He now ranks first for almost everything. I think the CTR and Bounce are huge in that result

hope that gives you a reasonable idea.

[intSchools]

Google claim that they do not use click through rates or bounce rates as ranking metrics. Also, no Google Analytics data is used in the ranking algorithm. Matt Cutts confirmed this in this YouTube video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLmO1GE4GvI