Bounce rate seems to decrease as site climbs the SERP but SERP ranking always drops down after a few days - WHY ?

[jpeg80]

Like quite a few sites recently we've seen some large fluctuations for our domain the SERPs over the past 6 or so weeks.

One thing ive noticed, is that when the site seems to rank higher in the SERPs we get a lower bounce rate. If the sites average across all of its main keywords in #5 the bounce rate is c. 40% (this site is a creative portfolio site, so i guess the niche has a slightly higher bounce rate than normal as you will get some people who click through an notice straight away that the style of the portfolio isnt what they where looking for)

But when the sites ranking averages #2-3 the bounce rate tends to be about 25%. (The thing is that we tend to always drop back down after a fews days or so)

Has any one else noticed this ?

[VeroBrain]

Hi,
Great point! I will look further. My guess is that the competitors are active also. A second thing, though your bounce rate decreases, it is highly possible the average time decreases also, due to as more incoming traffic, more visitors realise, after a couple of seconds, that is not what they want. Plus, I think all of us goes to a second and third option to compare. Maybe it is not a bad idea to stay in 2nd or 3rd, depending on the conversion, of course. It seems we all have to be accustomed to fluctuation, it came to stay. At the end of the day, is great for the good SEO practitioners.