Thinking about redesigning site to reduce bounce rate - have a couple of questions
-
BACKGROUND
Im looking at redesigning the website for a creative consultancy to improve the user experience. The website is mainly an image portfolio along with “press”, “our services”, “about us”, “contact” pages.
I originally designed the website a few years ago and when we did, we wanted to make the image portfolio the most important feature. So we made it a full screen JS image slider with lazy loading of images, so that there are about 40 full screen images on the homepage that rotate. From a users point of view i still feel this is the best system as it very quickly allows them to browse the portfolio, which we looking for a creative consultancy is their UPS (unique selling point).
The site has a very strong backlink profile compared to its competitors in the SERPS it has about 20-25% increase in PA and DA. But our site has been slipping down the rankings in recent years / months. From spot 1-2 to about spot 5-7.
MY HYPOTHESIS
I think that the reason the site may be dropping back in the SERP is that although its a very usable site, all its portfolio information is “too easy to find / view” and results in a user coming to our site, seeing everything they need to see, then bouncing back to the SERP. Our site has a bounce rate of 40-60%. Where as on competitors sites, their “portfolio” is a separate page off the homepage, so a users has to click through to a separate page, and even if they don't like the design content of the portfolio it doesn't get logged as a bounce.
MY QUESTION
-
Does bounce rate affect SERP ranking ?
-
Could the sites SERP performance be improved by redesigning the site to put the portfolio on a separate page so a user would have to click through to it, if that would get the bounce rate down, would the site see a benefit even if people still clicked back to the SERP results eventually after seeing our portfolio, even though it wasn't a true 1 page bounce ?
-
Dose time on site affect SERP ranking ?
-
Is there a way i can see a competitor's bounce rate ?
Would welcome any other thoughts inputs on this matter.
-
-
This a really good question, a lot of companies don't monitor their bounce rate.
but its important, if you reduce your businesses bounce rate then organic SEO can improve.
We reduced our bounce rate for our summerhouse company, by adding much more helpful advice, on the homepage, the bounce rate then decreased.
-
Hi sl_pa,
I don't know how Alexa calculates its bounce rate data, but I have found this: https://www.quora.com/How-does-Alexa-define-bounce-rate
Maybe that helps.
In any case, you can't trust much this stats from Alexa, but as you said, it can give a general figure. The perfect tool to see bounce rate is Analytics, but you can't see your competitors stats with this tool...
Greetings!
-
Thanks Paul,
On point 4) i had a quick review and our site is recording an Alexa bounce of 65% where as competitors are 40%. From Google analytics our year to date average bounce is 45%. So presumably our competitors are more around the 25% bounce rate in their Google analytics, but this Alexa number gives us a good general figure.
Do you know how Alexa captures / calculates its bounce rate data ?
-
Hi sl_pa,
1 & 3) Yes, bounce rate affects SERP ranking and time on site also affects SERP ranking, in fact, they are 2 of the most important factors in 2018.
Take a look at this Ranking Factors Study from Semrush, it's very interesting: https://www.semrush.com/ranking-factors/
4) You can see your competitors Bounce Rate with Alexa: https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/
2) Maybe you should try to imitate the model of the competitors that are performing better on Google, the ones who have top rankings and the ones who have a lower bounce rate.
Hope that helps Good luck!!
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
-
I have a site that has a 302 redirect loop on the home page (www.oncologynurseadvisor.com) i
i am trying to do an audit on it using screaming frog and the 302 stops it. My dev team says it is to discourage Non Human Traffic and that the bots will not see it. Is there any way around this or what can I tell the dev team that shows them it is not working as they state.
Web Design | | HayMktVT0 -
Site with no ads hit by Page Layout update?
Hi there! Can a site that has no ads on it be hit by Google's latest Page Layout update? Can it be hit for just one or two keywords? My site (www.ink2paper.com) has a decline in Google organic traffic in early Feb so my suspicion is the Page Layout update. However I have no ads on the site. Digging into GWMT I find that it is only one or 2 keywords that seems to have taken a dive, mainly [photo paper]. I used to get around 80 imps a day for this term. Then on 6 Feb it was down to 50; 7 Feb = 34; 8 Feb just 4 impressions! I got a spike back at usual levels on 10 & 11 Feb, but since then it has been back down to only 5 or so impressions a day. [photographic paper] took a small hit at the start of February, but has nose dived since the start of April. The homepage performs well for Google organic traffic - low bounce (22%) and good ecom conversion rate (14%) - although this is likely to be largely branded traffic. I feel my site is a 'good' result for the search term [photo paper], although there is always room for improvement of course! Any suggestions as to why Google has stopped showing my site for these keywords? All help is greatly appreciated. Cheers,
Web Design | | SimonHogg
Simon0 -
How to diagnose and improve a high bounce rate?
Under Google Analytics, I can see a bunch of quite useful information. One of the most alarming things is the excessively high Bounce Rate. It is 60%. That means, 60% of the visitors to my website (ecommerce site that sells equestrian gear and apparel) are leaving without clicking on any other links. I would highly appreciate it if someone can provide guidance on how to
Web Design | | amitramani
1. Diagnose this issue, i.e. understand why the visitors are leaving. 2. Fix the issues found. For reference, the site is www.vrtack.com Any ideas and help is much appreciated.0 -
Building a Mobile Site: Tools?
I've been tasked with re-building our company's mobile site and honestly have zero experience doing so. I know my way around HTML pretty well and have built several websites but never for mobile. Does anybody have any recommendations for me as far as tools to use to construct a proper mobile site? I basically want a simple page with four buttons on the front and a little drop down menu in the top corner. (not that this matters terribly but just saying, shouldn't need to be overly complicated.) Thanks in advance!
Web Design | | jesse-landry0 -
How to change the entire contents and design in my site without getting troubles with google?
Hello everyone This is my first post over here. In the next few weeks we going to change the entire content and design in our site. The site has 240 pages with poor contents and design. Except 301 redirects for all the old url’s I wanted to consult with you what is the right way to do it without harm my organic traffic that come from google? How google refers to this kind of changes? Which steps should I need to take to do it properly? Hope to get your help in the issue. Tahnks in advance.
Web Design | | JonsonSwartz0 -
Migrating a site to Wordpress
I've recently been converting our old website to a wordpress based website and been working on the new version of the site on a subdomain. Now at the stage when I am getting ready to let the site go live and just wondering exactly how to do this so I have minimal downtime? Looking in the wordpress control panel there is the setting to enter the address of the site if you want it to be different from the directory it has been installed within - is this a good idea (i.e. is it stable if I do this? good for seo, bad for seo or makes no difference?)? or should I manually install everything in the root myself (if I do this is there a way to direct people to the temp version of the site on the subdomain? Any tips, do and don't s would be appreciated as I want to do this right!
Web Design | | Jon-C0 -
Site redesign and links?
I have a real estate website. On my sidebar I have about 16 links to pages on various neighborhoods. I templated my site using dream weaver so the same sidebar and links are on every page. I'm thinking of redesigning the sidebar and having one link that will take visitors to a page where all the neighborhood links will be and then from there visitors can choose whichever link to go to a specific neighborhood info page. I am doing this to clear space on my side bar for other content and links. What impact would this have on my home page? The website is bronxpad.com if anyone wants to check it out and provide feedback.
Web Design | | bronxpad0 -
Technical SEO Question about TLD combined with SubDomain
I am making a new website but need to figure out the best way to do this in terms of SEO. I would like the website to have functionality of brochure website combined with an online store. My issue is that I will be using software called prestashop for my online store and CMS called MODx to develop my brochure site. (These can not be combined into one CMS). I can create brochure site with MOdx = www.example.com & then from that a subdomain using prestashop for my online store = store.example.com Can I get Google to index these as one site or would I be better off trying to get everything under the TLD. Ideally I would like just one site without subdomain Bacially what I am asking is... What are the effects of having subdomains in terms of SEO? Am I better of having everyhitng under TLD? Can I get Google to view TLD and Sub as one site? Hope this makes sense, thank you.
Web Design | | Socialdude0