Improving Bounce rate, Time on Site & Pageviews per visit

[donthe]

Based on what seems like a general agreement that the Panda update has modified Google's algorithm and on page metrics such as Bounce rate, Time on Site & Page views per visit are now vital to a websites rankings.

What methods are you using to improve these metrics? Have they worked?

[evolvingSEO]

Hi

This is a substantial question, which can have many possible answers.  First, bear in mind there are no "one fits all" solutions - there's no replacement for having a good look at your specific situation.  For e-commerce a >50% bounce rate may be bad, while for a news or blog site (especially when landing on a full article deep within the site) a 50% bounce rate may be pretty good.  So it does vary with the niche.

But to actually answer the question, you'll probably want to experiment with on page things, like design, usability, content quality - and especially take a look at the book "Don't Make Me Think" if you haven't.

But you should also make sure the right people are finding the right pages in your site.  For example, I had a site that was ranking very well for a certain term, and getting some good traffic.  But it turns out that key-phrase, and the intention behind the search was not aligned with what the site actually had to offer.  So we re-targeted to a more appropriate key-phrase which cut the bounce rate in half!

Also, if you have an e-commerce site, be sure the terms you're getting traffic for are transactional in intent (intent to purchase something) vs. informational.  If someone is looking for information but lands on an e-commernce site: higher bounce rate.

Lastly, a good benchmark I find is: how do you perform in brand searches?  This is where you want bounce rate to be lowest, time on site to be highest etc.  Someone is specifically looking for your brand, which should get the best metrics.  If these are not where they should be, then you know your on page can be improved.

Lots here I know, but hope it helps

-Dan