So your Google Analytics shows your website has an average bounce rate of 70%. Time to worry? Not at all!
Why is that? Well, as we mentioned in our previous blog, we don't believe Google is even using your website's personal analytics (even if the are Google Analytics) as a ranking factor to determine how worthy your website is of ranking well.
The two main reasons we think Google Analytics aren't relevant:
- They don't even show what the SEO-world agrees are the top 10, most important, on-page SEO things. And if they're not showing the most important SEO items, how critical can those analytics be? and
- your Google Analytics are hosed: the fact they're showing dozens of those "spammy" referral sites that all have a 100% bounce rate skews everything, so means nothing.
What are the things the SEO-world agrees are the most important on-page SEO items? Well, these to start:
- Page Titles
- Meta Descriptions
- Alt tags
- Quality links that are not “click here,” but use relevant words in the actual links...
Want to see more? We like Kern Media's list of the best on-page SEO tips, which you can read here.
Google knows everything
We wondered if the bounce rates you see on your website's Google Analytics are relevant for Google to determine how worthy your website is of ranking well. So we did some research. According to Matt Cutts, head of Google's web spam team and search quality, the simple answer is no.
Look at the bounce rates that matter
Which are the demographics of your audience, and throw out the spammy referral sites. How do you find the demographics for your website? Under "Audience" of your Analytics, you can see the demographics, which are the real people looking at your website.
Once you do that, you'll see your real bounce rate, for the audience that matter, is in the 45% - 50% range.
But isn't a 50% bounce rate high?
Those in the SEO-world who are smarter than us, say that there is no website in the world that has a zero percent bounce rate.
Not are there websites that have a 30% bounce rate. For those website that show that, there is a problem with your analytics.
So what is the average bounce rate for a website? Turns out is it 50%. Anything higher than 60% would be cause for concern.
Can we make those spammy sites go away?
As you might expect, we can’t prevent ANY person or website (no matter how nefarious they are) from visiting your, or our, websites. What we can do is prevent them from showing up in your Google Analytics.
However, that raises two important questions:
1. by not SHOWING them in your analytics, are they still AFFECTING your analytics? and
2. does it even matter they’re in your analytics at all?
Question #1 is something we are still trying to calculate, and
Question #2 is something we’ve been investigating, and we’re leaning towards the answer as being “no.”
What the SEO-word universally accepts as the all-important, top 10, on-page SEO rules are not even reflected in your, or our, analytics. So if the analytics are so critical, why don’t they show the stuff we KNOW is critical to Google?
Our suggestion is to not worry about those spammy sites showing 100% bounce rate.
Of course, if you don't want to even see those spammy referral sites in your analytics, we can remove them from appearing in your Google Analytics.
But keep in mind:
- they, or others, will be back appearing in your analytics again a very short time,
- as we said, by not having them appear in your analytics, would they still be AFFECTING your analytics? and
- we wonder if even matters they’re in your analytics at all, if it appears Google isn't using your analytics as a ranking factor?
We hope this help alleviate any worry about that artificially high overall bounce rate your analytics is showing you.
