Does Having A High PPC Bounce Rate Affect Organic SERPs?
-
Hi Mozzers.
My website uses a landing page for Google Adwords traffic targeting keywords like HR Software, HR Systems etc. The design of the landing page is similar to our website but a key difference is that, being a landing page, we've removed the navigation (it is still possible to navigate to the main website by clicking on the logo). We've A/B tested this and found that by removing the navigation we get more people converting/signing up for the free trial of our service.
We track conversions using Google Analytics. Depending on the keyword the conversion rate is between 2.5% and 5%. However, because we've removed the navigation the bounce rate is really high, circa 80% for our landing page compared to an average for our website of approx 40%.
Would having such a high bounce rate harm our organic rankings for the rest of the website?
Thanks
-
Thanks for your great answer David. Just to make sure I've understood this right...
In your opinion would a high volume of people pogo sticking back to the SERPs after clicking on a paid ad adversely affect the organic search performance of the rest of the site? Or do Google discount this high bounce rate for paid ads?
-
No his ppc setup is made to funnel his users to fill out the lead form which causes a high bounce rate while increasing his ppc ads effectiveness.
-
Maybe this is a little beyond my knowledge, but why would a PPC ad be designed to have a high bounce rate? How does that help get more leads? I get that it would probably be much higher than an organic result bounce rate. And, that it doesn't effect the SEO of the rest of the site.
My comment about optimization of the ad was in regards to the fact that if an ad has a high bounce rate, wouldn't that mean that it is potentially not converting well? So, the traffic arriving to the landing page is not seeing the offer as a fit for what they are searching for.
-
His bounce rate is high because he is running a Ppc lead gen and it is designed to have a high bounce rate to get more leads. You have nothing to worry about from a SEO perspective this is the way its done.
-
Chris,
I think all of the previous advice is great in regards to your bounce rate. David makes a good point regarding search engines measuring bounce in organic listings by a searcher returning to the search results, and not with analytics data.
I'd be interested in knowing what happened to your traffic when you still had the navigation on the page. Were the searching your site for more information on your company? Checking out your blog? Where were they going on your site?
Also, if you are experiencing a high bounce rate, this could be an indicator that your ad is not optimized. Which is essentially costing you money.
-
In my opinion this should not hurt you at all because google doesn't use analytics data for their algorithm. All the talk you hear about bounce rates etc effecting seo in my opinion tends to be from google searches that pogo stick back to the search results after an unsatisfied search.
Unless you think that google is using analytics data in their ranking factors and there are those that do and dont use analtics or chrome and wear tin foil hats to make sure they are safe.
Best of luck
-
Hi Chris,
There is a chance this could happen. I have seen a high bounce rate affect the whole site (probably for many different reasons). However, this was a site that then was given a manual penalty because of what they were trying to do, but it wasn't that dissimilar to yours.
-Andy
-
If it is a landing page ONLY for PPC, and regular organic searchers should not be going there, then you could just noindex that page. I think that will make it's bounce and other stats not count towards the rest of the site...
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Title page google serp
Why does Google change the titles automatically? I have <title>Canyoning Açores - São Jorge | Discover Experience Açores</title> but google show Discover Experience Açores: Canyoning Açores - São Jorge
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tiagoarruda0 -
What to do about real backlinks spiraling out of control and affecting domain trust flow
I have a site with a few hundred thousand backlinks and many of these are are legitimate, but the source site of the backlink often has a low authority and is broken, causing a spiral of bad backlinks from pagination, comment replies, etc. For example one site may have 4 legitimate backlinks with a spiral of 400+ bad backlinks, this is happening across dozens of domains. My site is more authoritative than these broken backlinks and regularly receives highly authoritative backlinks, because of this would it be best to disavow these spiraling low authority domains, attempt to contact the webmaster and add a nofollow, or any other solution?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FPD_NYC0 -
Does getting a placement in a high DA site matter if PA remains low?
I run a very small business in Australia, and was thrilled to create content which got picked up by a DA92 site in my industry. PA is at 1 as it's only been live for 2 weeks now, and I have a couple of questions that I couldn't find online: If a huge site like the Wall Street Journal adds content all the time, the page gets buried in their history. Would the PA improve over time, or should I just expect it to remain at 1 or 1-10? Is the boost to my SERP's negligable, is there a period where I need to wait to see the effect, or is there any effect whatsoever if the PA remains low? Thanks so much in advance, I really appreciate any input. Cheers,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BrighterFinance
Marcus0 -
How will this affect the rankings and traffic of the new site once this happens?
Hi, we will be moving a clients’ site address from one domain to another and will of course be doing 301 redirects and notifying Google of the site address change in WMT. The problem is, that at some point in the future (say 3-6 months), the old domain will be going live with a new site as the current client does not own the domain and the owner will be wanting it back unfortunately. How will this affect the rankings and traffic of the new site (new domain) once this (old domain with new site) happens? Will the site address change be enough to keep the rankings but it will lose backlink traffic? Or will rankings go down since the 301 redirects will in essence no longer be in affect? Many thanks for your help in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WSIDW0 -
Images with a token in the url, in Drupal. How does it affect to SEO?
Hi everyone! I am checking now a website that works with Drupal, and I found that images have urls like this... http://www.brandname.com/sites/default/files/styles/directory_xyz/public/name-of-the-picture.png?itok=T89RpzrK I was wondering how an URL like that with the token at the and, can affect to SEO. I cound't find anything. Anyone knows? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | teconsite0 -
Website (.BE) showing up in .NL SERPS
Fellow mozzers, we need your help We have a situation where a customer has two websites for each country: flowtracksurf.be → Belgium flowtracksurf.nl → Netherlands They used to have very good keyword rankings in the SERPS in BE & NL. Flowtracksurf.nl had good rankings in Google.nl and Flowtracksurf.be in Google.be.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jacobe
Recently there has been a change: Flowtracksurf.nl is not showing up in Google.nl anymore. It also seems that all the rankings from flowtracksurf.nl have been switched to flowtracksurf.be. .BE is doing very well, .NL is suffering. Data shows us that .NL : In the first two weeks of december 2014, we see a massive drop in traffic (GA) In that same week(s) we see a drop in search queries (Webmaster Tools) We see the exact opposite in .BE (growing strong in those weeks) When we look at the cache of flowtracksurf.nl we see only reference to flowtracksurf.be. Is that a hint of what was going on? On the same date that we see a massive drop in traffic on .NL, we see a peak in 'indexation' of .BE We see that the MOZ pages crawled dropped in that same week for NL We're also seeing that all the traffic from Google.nl is now going to flowtracksurf.be. Some keywords we were scoring #1-2 for are: surfvakanties, surfvakantie, surfcamp mimizan, surfcamp, frankrijk, surfcamp spanje, surfen frankrijk We just can't figure out the hard evidence in the data.
Can you help us on that?0 -
Page not appearing in SERPs
I have a regional site that does fairly well for most towns in the area (top 10-20). However, one place that has always done OK and has great content is not anywhere within the first 200. Everything looks OK, canonical link is correct, I can find the page if I search for exact text, there aren't any higher ranking duplicate pages. Any ideas what may have happened and how I can confirm a penalty for example. TIA,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cornwall
Chris0 -
Incorrect country listed in Google organic listing.
Hi, I have a client called 'Ivana Daniell'. She is a Pilates/ Movement Therapy/ Postural Assessment practitioner based in London. She has been based in the UK since 2011. Prior to that her studio was in Singapore. Her website URL is: http://www.ivanadaniell.com If you Google her using the UK engine (www.google.co.uk) using the term 'London Pilates' she comes up in the top four, but her organic listing appears with a small tag which reads "- singapore". I have attached an image of how it appears. This makes many searchers overlook her, believing that she is based overseas. We host her website here in the UK and have removed any reference to Singapore from the website. We have even put an h card on her site to indicate that she is London based. The client believes that this might be the result of an old Google places account of hers, from her time in Singapore. However I have not been able to find any such listing by searching for it in Google and, because it was allegedly set up by her former marketing manager, she does not have her username or password to the account. She has lost touch with the marketing manager and has no way to get the login details. To reiterate however I have seen no proof to suggest that this listing even exists. So, the question! 1. What could be causing the word 'singapore' to be appearing next to the organic listing? 2. If it is the result of an inaccurate Google Places listing, how do I delete this listing without either the username or password? 3. If this is not what is causing 'singapore' to appear by the organic listing, how do I get rid of the 'singapore' word? Thanks very much and Happy New Year mozzers! Edward M6Wyd M6Wyd
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GoUp0